


You Gave Me A Home

by Moonrose001



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bottom Tony Stark, College, Domestic Avengers, Dystopia, Extremis Tony Stark, Howard is ok, Identity Porn, M/M, Protective Tony Stark, Secret Identity, Self-Harm, Slow Build, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers is Not a Virgin, Superhero Registration Act, Top Steve Rogers, Top Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-15 05:38:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 101,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1293337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonrose001/pseuds/Moonrose001
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since Registration passed on and Sentinels started guarding the streets instead of superheroes, the USA has come to resemble Dystopia more than an united country. A young group of masked teenagers are fighting back the undemocratic and unconstitutional ways, lead by Captain America.</p><p>And Steve Rogers is a handsome, but awkward student leading a double life. He is also head and heels in love with Tony Stark, the son of the government's arms dealer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chibi_luna_chan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibi_luna_chan/gifts).



> It's a story where Captain America and Iron Man wasn't fighting over Registration but everything ended up messed up anyway. It is also a simple story about teenagers and first love.  
> Written for Chibi_Luna_Chan's suggestion on my other fic "Only you": "wanted to see how a fidgety uncomfortable Steve would explain to Howard the whole 'I'm in love with your son' thing. Because if that wouldn't be an interesting conversation I don't know what would. A strange, messed up, uncomfortable conversation, but still an interesting one. So yea I just wanted to see a universe with Steve falling for a youngish Tony (even if he was 18-early 20s) then having to explain that to Howard".  
> Which will come. Eventually.  
> As always constructive criticism and feedback is more than welcome ^^

 

The year 1995 the Superhuman Registration Act was passed on.

The pro and cons had been discussed for a while and the most known superheroes Ant Man, Wasp, Black Widow, the Fantastic Four - whose identities were all already public - supported this act as a controlling element to the growing superhuman population. The world’s most known weapon dealer, Howard Stark, even stood forward and talked about a world where weapons weren’t needed, where superheroes could do the job.

The people smart enough, but still not famous enough to really matter to the public, understood this sentence in a way they weren’t supposed to, but in a way which was just a relevant: It would be a world where superhumans were weapons.

So the superheroes who opposed to the act protested, but were soon arrested and put in the Negative Zone. Luke Cage, Jewel, Daredevil and many more were imprisoned until they agreed to register. Over the years only a few superheroes gave up and let themselves be registered to be free. Stubbornness was a very common superhero trait though, and most superheroes refused to give in. Howard Stark was an insider and stood for the safety of their identities until then. The released superheroes insisted they could do more from the inside.

Then the Skrull Invasion happened and the superheroes lined up. But registration bit them all, hard. The Skrull infiltration was successful because they knew which of the superheroes’ relations to swap out. It was only with the help of Osborn that humanity regained the control of the planet. Osborn takes over S.H.I.E.L.D. and renames it H.A.M.M.E.R. Privacy and human rights are exchanged for safety and control. Gradually superheroes pull themselves back from the public. They didn’t want to fight anymore and the government considered retirement a human right even few superhumans were allowed. In that way the government came to sincerely believe that they were being fair, even merciful. Because losing their superheroes was hard. So hard that Stark stepped back onto the scene and started producing Sentinels.

A short while after, over a lot of fighting with the X-men, Mutant Registration is the next thing getting passed on, soon resulting in Scott Summers, Wolverine and Rogue getting imprisoned. Charles Xavier is rescued by Erik Lehnscheer also known as the super villain _Magneto_ and lives underground as a wanted man. It gets out that Howard Stark’s son possesses quite the same genius as his father, but unlike Howard Anthony hasn’t yet proved his worth to the country. He gets the sort of immunity from imprisonment that the upper class tends to have, the promise to public about their young ones being safely guided, in control of their powers, under supervision of a military person and of course a certain measure of isolation and not being mixed with non-superhuman people is needed. To the day of 2014, it is still a common debate in the media about whether or not Howard Stark should turn over his son to the government. The man himself has taken to many defensive measures to keep his son close. In many ways the double standard is infuriating, no matter how small damage the genius could actually do – they had all heard about the time he had single-handedly controlled an out of control Hulk. The irony about Howard being the “victim” of the Act is not lost on anyone.

The superhumans’ family relations and partners are soon craved registered as well and with registration comes curfews, lack of privacy, controlled human relations, permit to reproduce, applications to marry. It becomes a cultural reaction for superhumans and mutants to start hiding their abilities to live a normal life. It only makes the law a tighter collar, the patrols more often, the inspections more thorough, the control more noticeable and the death sentence of Sentinels more constant.

\----

“I should be able to say that the SHRA was the first mistake that the USA made. You should be able to verbally acknowledge that the tight control is what ended up getting us blocked out from the rest of the world. You should personally know a mutant or a superhuman with a healthy life standard. You shouldn’t know a person whom you are pretty sure is a superhuman and whom you are pretty sure isn’t registered. You shouldn’t understand why that person won’t do that. You should be able to say what you want. You shouldn’t fear to become a mutant or a superhuman – you shouldn’t fear that a partner, a son, daughter, friend, sister or brother is or will become one. You shouldn’t be expecting for this to be the last time to hear my voice. But you expect all of that and I think it is time to admit that we could have done better when it came to forming our society.”

\----

He is just called the Captain in the beginning. He has an unhackable Youtube channel despite the desperate attempts of the government to trace it and take it down. There he criticizes the system and the government on camera. He bashes the so-called superheroes, says that they let corruptible, non-aware machines without compassion take over a job, only a superhero could do. The video is often split up from him debating with other, making a speech, guest visitors singing or playing a tune – it isn’t just a rant, a protest: it is entertainment. And that makes it far harder for the public to stay away. The Captain speaks of freedom and becomes a symbol for it. A year after he finally reveals his physical being, dressed in blue enhanced army suit, with red gloves and high boots, a helmet underneath the hood, a bandana around his head patterned with the American Flag. Only his blue eyes are visible, but they can see his strong build, the soldier like stiffness and discipline he has over his athletic and muscled body. He says it is the beginning.

The day after he shows up in the actual public with an assembled team of young mutants and superhumans. He calls them a freedom movement but what he really does that day is declaring war.

\----

“How far and straight out stupid has society become when a group of young adults, barely grown, has to take things in their own hands because the grown-ups are too scared? You think doing this is easy, fighting back having lived a life full of fear? We _know_ the consequences of our actions and we already _living_ the sacrifice. But isn’t it a small price compared to the freedom we can obtain? We are a blinded, oppressed people and we are living so deep into our lies that we don’t even realize it. I think it shows by how much we believe that this _is_ the only way to live. I’m telling, it isn’t.”

\----

Every time the youngsters take action a new speech or song or art piece comes out. All of the art forms spread like wildfire. The government cannot stop schools from singing a catchy song; they cannot silence the gossip spreading around and the revealed idea about hope. It hasn’t been born yet but the public is pregnant with the idea of breaking away.

\----

“We are not here to mislead you or to even lead you. We don’t have all the answers. All we ask is how is it wrong to break free from what is holding us down? To decide who we want to spend our lives with or whom we don’t want to spend our lives with? We are not here to take over. Believe me: We are not enemy. We are here to break the stranglehold. And we are here to avenge all the people who died in it.”

\----

People stop trying to catch them in the act, to report them, to inform the authorities about seen appearances. The government knows as much because their costumes are colorful and their group tends to be loud, and it is a straight out lie when the police stations insist that the group wasn’t seen before any of their attacks – which in general are just a lot of graffiti on holy places, hindrances in exchanges of information, a downright crash in updating the newest names on the Superhuman and Mutant list. The public is taking sides and it shows which one by how little Intel even the police are willing to offer about them. Their acts get more frequent and direct. Captain America – if he really is the one leading the group - is an excellent strategist and tactician. Their power is small and almost unusable in consideration of how they are slowly but surely breaking down the Act’s utility. He uses the Avengers to the fullest and the damage control becomes greater and more irreversible. The Fantastic Four a called back to the States to personally guard the Negative Zone, because everybody knew it would only be a matter of time before the Avengers would try to free the prisoners. It is an excellent move, and adds more reliable and experienced players to their teams. What they had done so far would be nothing against what the elder superheroes could do.

\----

Unlike Spiderman Steve doesn’t personally expect to never get caught. He knows that there will come a day when he would be compromised but he was willing to go that far. He just hoped it was in the action of doing something big.

\----

“Many questions and comments are added to our videos every time we release them. And many theories have been discussed. Well, first off I can tell you that no one in this group knows the identities of the others so we do not actually eat burgers at McDonalds after vandalizing the Statue of Liberty. That is a precaution and a safety measure we’ve taken for as little as possible information to be leaked and most likably tortured out if one of us gets captured even though our sense of loyalty would never allow us to abandon a comrade like that. For all questions regarding tech, we are supported by a source calling himself Iron Man – he is an official member of the team. Whether he is a technopath or just a very talented person, we do not know but we consider him one of our own. So to the agents and intelligence workers out there, listening to this, trying to find a slip from our side: Yes, you might find me. But you never get all of us. And that is a promise.”

\----

It’s almost painful looking at the old superheroes getting dragged out back into the public, exposed and naked in their years of therapy and isolation and distraction. When they had stopped being superheroes they had somehow lost the battle against themselves.

\----

“Rogers!”

Steve freezes. As casually as possible he turns around and heads towards the man standing by the computer. He should have known it would be stupid to get lessons in technology by Tony Stark. But he had thought that there would be a lesser possibility of getting suspected if he was standing just in front of the head of security’s son. And he needs the lessons. Iron Man never complains but Steve doesn’t feel right leaving so much control and information in the hands of a man he has never met, even though he does try to trust him.

With controlled steps he nears the young man. He isn’t very tall but thin and the years at the West Coast has coursed lighter stripes in his hair and a tan, which was admittedly starting to fade a little. He has early sign of frown lines and crinkles around his eyes, despite only being around 17 (Steve has heard that he just graduated from MIT and no one really knows why he chose to make his PhD in New York). The skin looks soft on his jaw, but is stubbly.

“Sir?” Steve says.

Stark quickly looks up at him, down at his computer again and then up at him. With a frown he asks: “What happened to your face?”

 _Your dad’s Sentinel happened to my face._ “Got in a fight,” Steve says and he isn’t lying. “I would rather not talk about it.”

“You commented on someone’s penis in the shower?”

“No, I got a woody looking at it.”

Stark startles out a laugh and Steve smiles pleasantly at him.

“But I guess my fantasies isn’t what you wanted to talk about?” he prompts.

“Well, no,” Stark says going serious again. “Actually I was directed to you. You’re leader of school committee, right?”

Another try at _Can’t see the forest standing between the trees_. The serum is getting used at its fullest because Steve signs up to whatever gives him the reputation of a good, normal. He had changed schools, but he was afraid that people would one day find out that he went from 110 lbs to 220 lbs within a day. “Yeah,” Steve says, relaxing a bit.

“You thought you were in trouble?” Stark teases with a wide, unpleasant grin.

Steve shrugs. “It came out of nowhere. I tried to remember if I was the one setting fire to the school lab yesterday, even though I’ve never actually been down there.”

“Well, how about we find it together then? Two heads are better than one as all people who aren’t geniuses say.” Tony catches himself, stares at Steve with wide eyes as if he expects an attack. Thoughtfully Steve just widens his eyes and looks away as if Stark’s slip makes him uncomfortable. Stark quickly continues: “I need to know this place better since I’m going to stay while making my PhD.”

“Well then.” This was going to bite him in the ass so hard. Steve summons a welcoming smile and reaches out his hands. “Let’s try this again.” Tony grabs his hands and shakes it firmly. “Steve Rogers, second year, the same age as you. I’m studying history and I will be glad to show you around. You can always come to me.”

“Well then, Steve, I’m sure I will be taking you up on that,” Tony replies and this time the smile lights up the whole room. Amazed Steve stands, staring at him with wide eyes and the only thing he can think is _Shit_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Captain is always there for his people. Steve wants to carry Tony's books.

Steve isn’t a stupid boy. Before he was dragged down into that basement in a building ruined by an earthquake all the way back in 1941, he had gotten a science scholarship. He had studied law where he had met Falcon; physics where he had met Donald – or Thor. He had to find out how that worked at some point. See, Steve had said that the Avengers didn’t know each other’s identity, but that was mostly on the other Avengers’ part. Steve had found the young superhumans and mutants. Steve had watched them, and estimated how far they would go for the opinions they did not utter, but which radiated off them when the issue was presented. But at the time he had been so tiny and he didn’t know what else to do besides talking freely on his YouTube channel. He is aware that he would get stomped down immediately, and one thing is giving everything he’s got, another is to lose. And he knows that this battle can be fought with his brain, so he isn’t eager to waste his life. As a fragile person he felt a little less useless with the channel.

It was later on, after the transformation, that the Captain had approached them. He hasn’t told them his public identity, but he isn’t trying to hide the similarities either. If any of the Avengers has connected the dots, they haven’t confronted him about it. He knows it isn’t fair to have the advantage and then not let them be sure that he knew but he can’t undo his knowledge, and he can’t trust the hundreds of other people who wanted to be an Avenger either. Sure, a lot of people agree that their cause is righteous, but how many would turn that passive guilt into activation? How many will actually fight and not run away when the Sentinel showed up? Risk their lives for something they believed in? Not break under the pressure, not rat them out, do their best, believe?

Exactly.

Not a lot. And even though Steve is sure there are a lot of potential Avengers out there, he hasn’t been watching for or locating any. The Avengers is still such a small idea, just an Initiative, and Steve isn’t ready – his team isn’t ready – to take it further.

Steve sighs and shuts down the computer. He finishes the rough draft in his head with the conclusion: _We might blame our leaders and politicians for being bad, but we need to, just as much, remember who voted for them._

He manages not to run his hand through his hair and instead turns the frustration into a pleasant smile at the librarian. She snorts at him in response of being caught spying and turns away.

All colleges of education with a student count on at least 1400, owns three-four spies in the teacher personnel. And then a hidden fifth in the other staff, for example the cafeteria ladies, janitors, cleaning staff or substitutes. A teacher to watch the students, a spy to watch the teachers and the spy’s boss watching the spy. Eyes are always watching and he needs to remember that.

With an imperceptible huff of slight exhaustion he gets up and packs together his things. He always operates on public computers (schools, public library, net cafés). He had done a good job hiding his channel even before Iron Man had started helping him out.

He takes his school papers – he has pressed code into the paper, and his hypersensitive sense of feeling helps him read the code with his fingertip (the typewriter is home, safe, all ambiguous documents he burns). He frequently uses the public computers for “Schoolwork”, using random computers, leaving false proof of a regular student on the computers, deleting any other electronic fingerprint.

Steve turns around and only his sharpened reflexes stop him in time from knocking right into Tony Stark.

It does inspire a jump though and next thing the young boy is kneeling at his feet, gathering together papers with a running rant on stupid studs and their muscle build. Steve suspects that Tony doesn’t know he is speaking out loud and he kneels down. Deliberately he puts a hand onto Tony. The boy flinches and looks up at him.

Steve allows himself to grin. “You okay there?”

Tony is frowning at him, wrinkling his nose (it looks kind of cute) and then bursts out: “Steve!”

“Tony!” he mock parrots which earns him a shove. With a single swipe of his hand he has gathered the eight papers and he hands the bunch to the boy.

“That’s cool,” Tony says grudgingly.

Steve examines Tony’s face. “How long haven’t you slept?”

Tony looks slightly manic. He is shivering and looking a little sore. There’s a bruise on his cheekbone and the circles underneath his eyes look at least a week old.

“Who hit you?” he asks, tipping Tony’s face slightly up at him.

“Is my big hot stud of a boyfriend going to go beat them up for me?”

Steve scowls. “I don’t beat people up.”

“Damn it. What can I use your muscles for then. But you’re willing to compromise on the boyfriend part?”

“I can carry your books for you. We can be sweet couple everyone hates in high school.”

“You’re making a very tempting offer, Mr. Rogers.”

“Only for you, Mr. Stark.”

Too much warmth is slipping out. Steve is slipping.

Tony is looking at him strangely with this sweet smile and Steve can’t help but smile back.

“I might take you up on that, Mr. Rogers.” Tony’s voice is warm. His smile even warmer.

Tony’s phone starts to ring. They both stand up and Tony looks a little embarrassed about the moment as he searches for his phone. Steve reaches out and squeezes Tony’s arm before nodding and heading off. He ignores how his heart is beating faster. Tony is forbidden, Tony is trouble.

\----

It’s dawn when the phone no one knows about starts ringing. Steve has fallen asleep on the couch again and he throws out an arm, frantically searching for the phone on the sofa table, already covered with blue prints, city maps and building schematics. He looks at the caller ID and immediately plugs in blocker, making it block any sort of tracking. When it lights green, the phone is giving its final tones and with held breath Steve finally picks up.

“Scarlet,” he says.

“Cap, you need to help me.” She sounds out of breath and the signal is bad. He starts getting up and gathers the essentials in a backpack; cash, gloves, a hard drive, camouflage blanket, an EMP connecter, food.

“Where are you?”

“125th, East Harlem Train Station.”

Steve freezes shortly at the very public location and then continues to shrug on his pants. “You’re unmasked?”

“Yes!” she desperately bursts out. “Please, Cap, my brother is hurt and I think the Sentinels are still tracing us – “

“I will be there in five.”

He hangs up, lets the phone stay even though it will probably make her panic further when he won’t pick up again. The situation seems desperate on their end and she would probably try to call again.

Steve had “found” Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver when he was a cashier in Walmart in Brooklyn. They had both never shown in the neighborhood before, and their faces were hidden in hoods. They were a wanted pair; at some point in their lives they had been exposed and the Sentinels had gotten to their scent. He let them steal a couple of times, before they apparently changed route and moved on to other grocery stores. After the Incident the Captain had found them in Bronx, sleeping on the streets. Their anger was endless but they were still sharp and suspicious of his tempting offer. He had ended up dropping one of his many numbers. One day they asked him to destroy a Sentinel with them for fun. They ended up destroying five and it had ended up on the news, making the World Council piss their pants. They had all been enchanted with making their anger, their _destruction_ into something big, something public – and Steve, he had been too fueled with endless loss to stop.  

He arrives at the train station without a mask – if they are exposing themselves, he owns them nothing but the same. They are easy to find. They are huddled together amongst the drug addicts and beggars, Quicksilver shivering in a blanket – seemingly from the cold if you didn’t know better – and Wanda looking out of place among the beggars with her pride.

He knows it won’t be long before the Sentinel will have tracked them in the crowd and casually he lurks through it. He makes a show of looking like he is headed somewhere else, and tips a few other beggars before ending in front of Wanda. As he thought she is trying to call him and looks angry as the phone isnøt picked up. She has no tin ready and she turns angrily at him when he throws the money, but something in his expression makes her quiet. He nods once and very slowly he walks over to a kiosk, looks for a magazine he knows hasn’t been out for years, before heading out to the front. He walks in a straight line as if he is going somewhere when he drops the EMP connector and then he tries not whip too sharply around, scanning the crowd. He catches Wanda’s eyes and he heads off a few blocks. She is following slowly – her pace hindered with the weight of her brother, how thin he might be – when Steve is sure they are alone and unwatched he heads back. She looks back at him, relieved and exhausted enough to cry. He doesn’t say anything, just squeezes her arm before lifting off her brother.

“Does your brother catch infections?” he asks, they might be lucky.

She frowns. “Yes.”

He nods. He can’t afford taking a cap. “Do you trust me?”

“I called you, didn’t I?”

“Do you trust me with your brother?”

She flinches, hesitates and looks like she is just about to snap, when he sticks out his hand. “Steve Rogers.”

She looks away. “Wanda Maximoff. My brother’s name is Pietro.”

He tries not to wonder about the origin of their heritage. They don’t look like each other at all; Wanda richly colored and voluminous in being, while her brother looked just as sly, sharp and quick as his powers.

“Go,” she lets out.

“Take a cap with the money to this address,” he says and slips her the prepared note. She nods and heads off without hesitating, and he slips on the camouflage blanket. He has been told that it was Invisible Woman who had helped make the first prototype. Not only did it camouflage completely into the background, it also reflected the same heat and radiation signature as the surroundings did, making it hard for Sentinel’s infrared and heat detectors to pick something underneath the blanket up. It doesn’t stop ever being weird though, running in the face of a Sentinel and his paranoia only heightens as he carries Quicksilver with him. It takes him nearly an hour to reach the location he asked her to stand at. He is sweating and irritated.

“Your brother has been poking his sharp elbows into my back in super speed,” he grumbles, feeling the bruise on his back already. She doesn’t jump, just smiles directly at him even though she can’t see him and he isn’t worried by that, Scarlet Witch can do stuff like that.

He quickly leads them down to his basement. He turns on the lights (everything was powered an arc reactor, made and sold illegally by Vanko), sets his backpack down and then deposits Pietro in the sofa. Wanda is circling the sofa to get a better reach to her brother and whispers: “His thigh.”

Steve takes off the pants and sights the muscle rupture. He frowns. “Did you get sample of what they shot him with?” he asks, because he knows this couldn’t have happened naturally. He is actually pretty sure it’s impossible.

He does what he felt like doing as soon as he saw her hopeless face at the train station, and pulls his arm around her shoulders. She stiffens and then relaxes into it. “Thank you, Cap,” she whispers.

“Any time,” he says. “We should have covered our tracks back at the station, even though I wouldn’t want to do it again. I suggest you two stay here while I visit Dr. Banner. This injury is caused by something which temporary slowed him down. If someone knows something about this, it’s Banner.” He finds His old pajamas pants and shirts for the siblings; his own are too small now and he is never cold anyway, so His will have to do. He shows her the shower and has cleaned her brother and started cooking up the minestrone when she comes back out.

Then her brother wakes.

He is loud, obnoxious; his legs have a tendency of ruining things around him, so in all he is just like he is in battle. Together they all eat a loaf of bread and the whole casserole of minestrone. He has been rationing, but can’t help but smile as he feeds Pietro protein shakes. It would be good for the boy to put some more weight on. Steven had often thought this during battles too.

“I’ve seen you before,” the white haired boy nags.

“You are right.”

“I knew it. Where?”

“Won’t tell ya.”

Everything is going great. His phone (the right one) calls, he gets them both to be quiet and when a “Heya Steve,” cheerfully comes out he almost drops the phone.

“Tony,” he says nervously, runs a hand through his hair (damnit). Wanda is getting this big grin on her face. It’s ominous.

“So I was thinking about those school books,” Tony says, oblivious, “were you serious about that?”

“Well, you are my lector, you have a lot of books,” Steve slowly replies. “It would be such a heavy burden to hold alone.”

“Want to carry my books half an hour before first lecture?”

“Provided you let me buy you a cup of coffee and make people jealous.”

“I love the way you talk.”

Pietro is making gagging noises and Steve is glaring. “Killing them with love.”

“So I will see you tomorrow at the cafeteria?”

“You will.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

An awkward pause. “Bye,” Steve says and hangs up. The siblings break out in laughter. He is already regretting his decision about taking them in.

“But wow, Cap,” Wanda says and looks around, “this is practically the Bat Cave.”

“The Batman comics are banned,” he reprimands. “His identity was secret. You shouldn’t be reading banned books.”

“We are indeed mighty crimeriders,” Pietro impersonates Thor, which admittedly makes Steve smile. He is packing a back, on his way to Bruce, when he belatedly wonders what his next move should be. It is better to have the twins close, safer if things go well, but Steve worries because a lot of his fail-safes need to be renewed now. But mostly of all, he thinks about his date with Tony tomorrow. What the Hell is he going to wear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve takes the metro and his heartbeat is pulsing heavily underneath his skin, humming as if he is going into battle, but it's so much sweeter than that.

“It’s destabilizing adrenalin and heavy sedatives,” Bruce informs. “It’s been circulating in the police force for a while. It's meant to destabilize the endocrine gland to slow down hormone transfer and is known to dull mutant powers.”

“Why haven’t we heard about this before?” Steve asks.

“You’ve mostly been battling Sentinels, not the police,” Bruce points out.

“So they use this against criminals?”

“More like if they need to contain a crowd. In small doses it works pretty well against crowds.”

Steve swallows the bitter disappointment. He had hoped America wouldn’t take it further than they already had, had hoped they knew the line. In a country where most of Manhattan floated 500 meters above ground, he had hoped… He doesn’t know what he had hoped. That the corruption wouldn’t be so bone deep, perhaps. He feels like he has to do something about it and he fears that he may have to take the whole government apart before that can happen. Hell, just getting Registration removed would be prying the government apart. He had figured that the people would be the one to do that, when they had grown enough, got accustomed to the idea of taking back power.

He has always imagined going back to being a normal guy when Registration was gone and right now that vision doesn’t look so good. Not if what Bruce says is true.

\----

-          _Iron Man._

-          _Now I exist, huh._

-          _My network was down. I’m sorry._

-          _It’d be easier if we could connect on both ends._

-          _You know I can’t do that. I have too much sensitive information._

-          _…_

-          _I have Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver with me. They were compromised to the database again. We need to get the latest update deleted so they can start walking the streets._

-          _And when you say we, you mean **I** have to that. Wow, is this me being that ugly IT-guy everyone befriends so they can use him?_

-          _You know I consider you one of us. One of mine. You’re an Avenger as well._

-          _It doesn’t count if I’m not on the battlefield with you. You clearly haven’t been listening to your fans._

-          _That’s very primitive thinking, Iron Man. I thought you’d know. **No**. Every way counts. This isn’t WW2; the fighting isn’t only on the battlefield. You’re just as valuable as anyone else on the team. Losing you would cost us highly. Me highly. People like you are rare. _

-          _I feel slightly better now._

-          _I’m sorry I made you feel like that._

-          _Are we doing group therapy now?_

-          _How you feel is important, Iron Man._

-          _How long am I going to cover up your banned books downloads._

-          _I’ll let you deflect because of your vulnerable ego._

-          _I’m pretty sure you’re reading Batman at the moment._

-          _I think he is more your style. Smart. Secretive._

-          _I don’t know who you are either._

-          _But you could if you tried._

-          _I don’t think so. You’ve been hanging out with Fury too much._

-          _What is that supposed to mean?_

-          _You’ve become a paranoid bastard. Is anything about you real?_

-          _I’m a very real person. And so are you._

-          _I could be an android. Or better, an AI. You’ll never know._

-          _Either way I consider you an equal. Isn’t that what this fight is all about?_

-          _Here we go._

-          _It’s about equality :D_

-          _You’re a shameless patriot and you disgust me._

\----

Wanda is smirking by the door as he digs through his closet and throws clothes over his shoulder.

“What would you use a tuxedo for?” Wanda asks as she picks up the dusty set. Fury had it delivered when Steve had his first undercover mission. Harmless stuff, he had been the girlfriend of Maria Hill (boy toy is what people whispered behind his back). Of course he hadn’t gone in blind. Fury is a wanted man but that doesn’t make him trustworthy enough to tell Steve's identity. Iron Man had DNA wipes, voice alternator and an elder face chart delivered to him. Being undercover had made Steve a nervous wreck and afterwards Fury had wanted the suit back and Steve had claimed it destroyed. Both because asking for the suit had obviously been a way to identify the Captain (Steve is pretty sure he covered his whole body with the wipes, but you couldn’t be too careful) and because Steve could use it later on.

“A Pizza Hut uniform,” she continues and tosses it aside only to pick up and examine a police uniform.

“Makes you practically invisible,” he explains. It is one of his favorite uniforms.

“This is nice,” she hums and picks up a blue t-shirt. It has a V-neck. It had been from when he had just created his persona. In the beginning of this he had  very coldly calculated what he had needed to create a new identity, a public Steve Rogers, so he had a lot of different things to use for a lot of different occasions. He had built a chart and quickly added stuff on it: dates, being seen at parties, a circle of so-called close friends, a history. A past. But Tony isn’t just another detail on the chart.

Tony is someone Steve is actually interested in. Perhaps the first stumbling steps at becoming just Steve again.

“And these jeans,” she continues and picks up a dark pair. “You’re late.”

“Don’t you dare make me panic now,” he says and directs blouse in his hands at her head. He tries not to feel guilty when it actually hits her. But he probably is late and god damn it the chat with Iron Man had taken too long. It’s just that Steve worries and Iron Man has this passive-aggressive thing and usually it ends up with Iron Man bullying him or Steve poking him about his health.

He shrugs on the shirt (does he look too desperate with the V-neck?) and shrugs on a ragged dark blue football jacket before he heads out. Wanda follows him to the door and he wonders if she used to go to school. He knows that the twins have been in the database since they were about sixteen years old. Maybe they are runaways. Most likely, considering how they just showed up out of nowhere, always moving, not listening to everyone.

Steve takes the metro with his heartbeat pulsing heavily underneath his skin, humming as if he is going into battle, but it's so much sweeter than that. The school is barren without all the students, even though they are nothing but forty minutes away from arriving. He finds Tony already in the cafeteria. He looks like he has been up for some time and Steve feels overdressed, like there is far too much product in his still damp hair. Tony looks unaware of the world and Steve considers coming back later, but ends up sitting down in front of Tony who is glaring down his computer screen. It looks new. A prototype maybe.

“What are you doing?” Steve asks, a smile tugging around his lips as Tony starts typing.

“Lectures,” Tony hums.

“For my class…?”

“What do you – Steve!” Tony flushes and slams down his computer screen. Steve grins and blushes a little in return.

“You seemed absorbed,” Steve remarks. “Please don’t let me stop you.”

“I was – I don’t know, just looking over some stuff and I – How are you?”

“I’m fine.” He can’t help but smile a little fondly. His stomach is tingling again and he tries not to let it show how nervous he is – or wait, to Hell with it. Steve is human, he hasn’t gone a real date for months and he likes Tony so he has justification to be nervous, alright. “You’ll quickly get wrinkles that way,” Steve notices and rubs his thumb in between Tony’s brows, smoothing out the line. Tony turns his frown at him.

“It’s just, I’m discussing something with this dude and his usually charming stubbornness is driving me nuts.”

“Work?”                                                       

“Yeah.”

“What are you working on?” Steve curiously asks and quiets the voice which tells him to use the information for tactical reasons. Information from an insider is more – no. He stops the voice. He is here to talk with Tony. Be with Tony. What his father and his company does, isn’t Steve’s business. Well, right now it isn’t.

“Nothing,” Tony dismisses too quickly, adds, “important. Nothing important. How are you?”

“You’ve asked that.”

“I will be a smooth charmer in some years. Let me keep my years of innocent fluster.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it. But I am really curious though. Is it something big? Something which makes money? Calling dibs on being your kept man.”

“If I didn’t know better I’d say you’re only interested in my money. But to keep you from leaving me, I can tell you that Stark Resilient is my own business and bottom made.”

“That’s great.” He isn’t surprised. The world has been waiting for Tony to manufacture, to make the big guns Howard has started refusing to make. “Stark Resilient sounds stark.”

“You’re horrible.”

Steve is hit by a strange sense of déjà vu. He shakes it off. “So you’re building a company.”

Tony’s eyes are twinkling. “I’m going to bankrupt my dad. Don’t tell anyone.”

“Blackmail material duly noted. Oh, I’m sorry I’m only here to carry your books.” It’s probably just the banter making him feel so secure with Tony. That he is used to. Nothing to feel strange about. “I think you smashed your computer though. You have a really firm grip.”

“Do you like strong men, Steve?”

Steve blushes. This flirting business is going fairly quickly, at least to him. Maybe too quickly. “I like mental muscles,” Steve says and blurts: “Which I hear you have plenty of. You’re Registered, right?”

Tony’s smile turns into grimace. “Ouch, Steve. You couldn’t have waited to second date?”

A quick once over tells Steve that Tony is sincerely playful. Being Registered isn’t always easy business for people to talk about. He is glad that Tony is used to the question and doesn’t get hurt by it. Steve considers himself a polite person who tries to be sensitive about things, but he also knows he can be very straightforward. “Does it bother you?”

“No,” Tony says, both of his brows going up. “Refreshing, actually. People always roam around it. Things become awkward. What about yourself?”

And that’s it, his skin crawls, heartbeat skyrockets, all of the alarm bells in his head starts ringing _heknowsstayawaytakedistance_ – “What about me?”

“Well, I heard that you’re not from Manhattan and honestly I can hear that too.” Good thing that he has made a name, bad that his dialect can be detected. “What were you doing before?” Tony grins and looks pointedly at Steve’s football jacket. “Played football?”

Steve’s smiles crooks. He hasn’t actually ever played a game of football in his life. Baseball had always been more of his suit. “Yeah, a little bit. We were a lousy team though. Still keeping in touch.”

“Where did you live before?” Tony asks.

“Brooklyn,” Steve answers, trying to act like it doesn’t matter to him that anyone knows. His papers say Brooklyn. It’s okay.

Tony looks strangely at him. “Does your family still live there?”

“I’m an only child and my parents died when I was a pup.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Enough about me. Tell me something about yourself.”

Tony grins but his eyes don’t pick it up. “Well, you probably already know from the tabloids.”

Steve ducks his head, his ears burning. “I just wanted to hear your side. The tabloids exaggerate,” with the few things they are allowed to talk about _shutup,_ “and I think you telling things your way would be a lot more interesting.”

Tony looks like he doesn’t believe him, but then just shrugs it off, rolls his eyes as if his life doesn’t matter and says “Well, I graduated MIT last year. I made a good buddy over there, Rhodey. He joined the air force after that, but we’re still talking. And as you heard before, I’ve started selling my own ideas, making a name.”

“Why did you come to New York? Didn’t you grow up in Malibu?”

Stark - _Tony_ makes a face again. “He tried to keep me out of all the Registration business. Hypocritical I know.” Tony tenses up.

Steve acts like he doesn’t notice anything wrong. “He couldn’t have known you’d grow up with a lot of mental muscles.”

“Yeah I wonder about that,” says Tony thoughtfully and a grin is making way on his face. “You think I have a lot of mental muscles then.”

Steve reluctantly lets go asking about Tony and they find common topics to talk about. Ten minutes later Steve is heaving for air as Tony tells the story about his crush on a far older senior and how she had rejected him. “She seriously said ‘You’re my cute little brother’,” Tony repeats. “It was humiliating.”

“After you named an invention after her?” Steve chuckles. “That’s so awful, Tony.”

“And somehow you’re still finding it funny.”

They end up sitting together with Steve’s phone between them, Tony talking shit at it and blaming it for not working decently, all because he can’t beat Steve’s high score. Steve cackles at him and almost feels threatened for a second (Tony is a quick learner) but Steve still ends up getting above both Tony’s and his own record. “You’re dangerous,” Tony says. “No one should be that good at flappy bird.”

“Someone with a lot of down time can,” Steve says. That’s not true. It's because his body works so well now that games are easy, his brain picks things up faster, and his motor control and concentration are sharper than most. “Figures that you’re so lousy, because you’re always busy.”

Playfully Tony shoves at him and the contact feels nice and Tony must think so too, because he leans into Steve’s arm. When the first lecture is about to start, it feels like time has been going far too quickly and Steve is nervous about how they are going to part. Tony ends up just squeezing his arm awkwardly and turns to go, and Steve puts a hand on Tony’s shoulder and leans in to kiss him on the cheek. It’s slow and Steve lingers, but when he pulls back Tony is looking at him with this light in his eyes and Steve can’t help but smile in return. He doesn’t think he has been so unable to not smile for a long time.

“You never carried my books,” Tony says in this low, slightly hoarse voice and it makes Steve’s heart flutter.

“There will be a next time,” Steve answers and tries not to make it sound like a question. It does so anyway because he isn’t smooth like that, but the smile Tony gives him is worth it.

\----

“How was your date?” is the first thing he hears when he enters the building. The ride home had been long, guards all over the place. His basement is located on the outskirts of Manhattan on ground level, so security let up, but he wonders if it is always going to be like that.

Steve sighs. “From a scale from 1 to 10 how hungry are you.”

“His metabolism always makes it a 10,” Wanda answers, poking her head into the hallway. Steve nods and walks into the kitchen. “I’m going out for groceries and then going to work. Don’t go outside before midnight, Iron Man will have you deleted from the database then. Don’t touch any sort foreign kind of technological device because I don’t even know what most of them do. Pietro, I know about that gun you keep and I want you to consider what you are going to do with it. Wanda, thanks for the help this morning.”

“How did it go?” she repeats Pietro’s question.

Steve looks up and smiles. It’s answer enough.

**\----**

Monday morning is hard to Steve. He’s been in New Mexico all weekend, helping Thor with some superhuman emigrants. Thor senses Steve’s butterflies and the mood is lighthearted the first couple of hours. Then a superhuman baby with a human mother starts crying, releasing rampant energies, Thor sets off a storm and it ends up with Steve half-carrying Donald through a desert blossom. He has gotten some weird rash on his neck (and that concerns him, because he hasn’t gotten anything like this since he transformed) and by the time they’ve found Donald’s walking stick, Fury has already come to pick them up. It’s hard work, dirty money, something Steve would have done for free if he could afford it. But he can’t and this way he can make sure that the emigrants are leaving the country without Sentinels shooting at them.

He has barely had any time for a shower, but he needs to show up at school. He hasn’t slept since Friday and feels slightly thinned out. He had also left his bedroom in ruins this morning, because apparently Pietro had been going through his stuff the weekend he was gone and Wanda had tried to get him out with hex bolts (because they are always a great idea). He isn’t taking Pietro’s actions seriously, knows it is just a precaution Wanda had decided not to make. Pietro is different, doesn’t trust him the same way Wanda does and Steve understands that. Besides, there is not really a lot to find. Perhaps a sketchbook or two. Steve tries not to think about the sketches in them.

“Is that coffee.”

Steve turns from his empty staring at the wall and sights Tony. He can’t help but lighten up. Tony looks a little sleep-deprived and slightly manic and he is predatorily eyeing Steve’s thermal cup. “It’s tea,” Steve says, not even bothering to sound like he is not lying. Tony’s caffeine consumption has already become legendary and the guy could probably sniff out the beans a good distance away.

“Lies, you look just as high on caffeine as I feel,” Tony scowls and then widens his eyes, making them look big and round and glassy brown. “Can I have some?” he asks, stepping forward. Steve instinctively pulls the thermal out of reach, Tony’s eyes following it.

“What will you give me in return?” Steve teases.

“You can put off carrying my books,” Tony whines, making grabby hands.

Steve sighs dramatically at the cup and then grins down at Tony. “So close and yet so far away.”

“I will not stand for this harassment,” Tony says, directly pushing into him now. “I deserve that coffee.”

“Is that so, what did you do?” Steve asks.

“I went to a party.” Tony punctuates every word with a knock of his forehead into Steve’s collarbone.

“Yeah?” Steve says, only moving his hand away when Tony jumps.

“And listened to old people.”

“Mhm.”

Tony is breathing on his neck. “Including my father.”

“Oh.”

“And then I went home and invented a water filtration system without the use of aluminum.”

“Oh I see.”

“Yes, you _brute_ – “

“Genius deserves his cookie then.” Steve lowers the cup and Tony is prying off his fingers before Steve has the chance to relent. Tony takes a slurp (an indirect kiss, a voice in Steve’s head makes him aware) and then wrinkles his face. “It tastes three weeks old,” he complains. “That’s so gross!”

“And still you recognize the taste,” Steve laughs. “And it is from Friday.”

“Why so long?”

Because he can’t let anything go to waste and he doesn’t get stomach aches anymore. The taste doesn’t bother him, but he should probably be mindful of letting other people drink his coffee (which meant he would have to dare Pietro to drink it). “Forgot all about it, I guess,” he says. “I have a tough stomach.”

They look at each other and Steve gives in and lays his arms around Tony’s shoulders. Tony hums in content and keeps drinking off the thermal while the other arm circles Steve’s waist. “How has your weekend been besides the party and the genius inventing?” Steve asks.

“Slow,” Tony grumbles. “You weren’t in it. What is that rash on your neck?”

Steve self-consciously puts a hand on it. “Allergic reaction to something at work I think.”

“Where do you work?”

“A private shop downtown. It’s selling all kinds of herbs.” It isn’t a lie. Steve just only shows up to earn some extra bucks for heavy lifting when there’s no better work to do. The manager doesn’t ask any questions.

“And what did you do all weekend?” Tony returns and the _to look like this_ is silent, but there. Steve blames his fair complexion that he looks like a dead body if he just skips one night of sleep.

Steve shrugs. “Work and my roommates. They are loud. And they eat. A lot. Sometimes hard to keep up.” Pietro is a black hole when it comes to food.

He feels a vicious squeeze on his ass and squeaks loudly.

“Sorry,” Tony says, sounding dazed and not sorry at all. “Couldn’t help it. How often do you work out?”

“Well, I’m running late for class. I will see you later, Tony.”

“Can I touch it again.”

“ _Goodbye_.”

\----

That night Steve has been hired to be DJ at a club in the Bronx and works until morning. He plans to take a nap but then he gets into a fight with Wanda. She says he doesn’t need to take care of them and he says that he doesn’t mind. Oddly enough it is Pietro who keeps calm. It ends up with Steve agreeing to let them pay rent and both of them promising they will earn the money legally. He doesn’t run into Tony at school next day and it only leaves him feeling more drained. After school he doesn’t know if he is mentally ready to work as a guard at the amusement park in Brooklyn, but he isn’t hit by any painful flashbacks of Him and when his shift is over, he feels twitchy but not broken.

When he comes home, Pietro is looking through a sketchbook. Steve shouldn’t have been annoyed, he knew Pietro would find them at some point, but he can’t help but feel defensive.

“Who is Bucky?” Pietro asks, pointing at a sketch and Steve's sight snaps out of focus. Everything blackens out for a second and when he comes to, he is shaking on the floor with his head in Pietro’s lap. His hands are shaking so bad, and a cold sweat has broken out all over his skin. When had he let it become so bad that he couldn’t even hear the name? Pietro is panicking and wiping sweat off Steve's skin before it can gather in drops, shouting at Wanda in the phone. Everything is pain and _Buckybuckybucky._

And the eternal outcry _Why?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is taking steps, stumbling. It's not only just attraction anymore.

This is the problem. Things changed with Steve’s body, when He no, when _Bucky_ died. When Bucky died Steve had set a goal. He decided that he wasn’t going to just stand around and do nothing anymore. It had been a relief and a heavy load to take upon himself. But he had gone through with it all (had no choice really, people would notice him being big all of a sudden and figure out the truth and then he’d be Registered), had moved away from everything, killed his past. And through all of this Bucky’s absence had felt like missing his _hands_. And that grief and determination and intelligence he forced himself to demonstrate, it made him to someone else.

He feels less gentle these days.  

For the first time in a long while he looks into the mirror. It’s his face, but not his body. He never chose to have it changed even though he had often longed for a healthier body, a stronger one.

“Steve?” Wanda knocks.

“Come in.” He turns around.

She looks hesitant. Her dark curls looks newly washed and the scent of his soap reaches his nose. He wonders if she wants to go out and smash a Sentinel with him.

“Might as well call Pietro in.“ Pietro is there before he’s even finished the sentence.

He sighs and rubs his face. “I’m sorry. That hasn’t ever happened to me before. That person, he’s … He called himself Bucky. I grew up in the orphanage with him.” He looks up at them. “He was superhuman. His grandfather was experimented on in Italy by Nazis and it passed on to him. He is dead now.”

\----

Steve couldn’t just shut up. He always knew he was going to be in serious trouble one day and sure, there came that one day. A child in the local mall had gotten accused of being a mutant and he had stepped in before the accusation had become too serious. Hutch, the worst bully, heard him. Two nights after Steve had been on his way home to his and Bucky’s apartment and suddenly been grabbed and dragged off by Hutch and two of his friends. They beat on him for a while, but when the police showed up they had quickly taken hiding in the construction site. The building had been destroyed by an earthquake back in the forties but third day into rebuilding, the police and S.H.I.E.L.D. had shown up. Rumors had said that the construction workers had found a hidden operation in the basement, and Steve had himself seen body bags lodged into carriers _._ The bodies would only be skeletons at this point.

The sight had been closed off, but not guarded. The old machines were almost fully intact, blinking as if they were still waiting to be used. It had smelled awful and that was what had made Steve straighten.

“What the Hell is that?” one of the bullies had asked and nodded towards a bunk hidden inside a huge metal coffin.

“I don’t know, put him on it,” Hutch had grunted and Steve weakly protested. “Keep him quiet, don’t want the police to hear us.”

“Look, it even has straps,” the third bully said and when Steve had started groaning and making noise, the friend had grabbed a dirty cloth (Steve has no idea what is was or where it came from) and put it into his mouth, tying it in place with a strap, afterwards tying Steve to the bunk with a strap over his stomach and arms. Both of the friends had leaned back to watch their handiwork and looked satisfied.

The smell had been far worse in the coffin, the bunk felt clammy like one of the bodies had been laying on it. The curfew starts and all of the lights cut out only for the machines to reboot themselves. Ten minutes had passed and then the machinery had started shifting. Steve starts struggling, seriously afraid now, but the trio didn’t seem to care or notice. The police eventually left and Hutch looked thoughtfully at him for a second, before he pats Steve’s cheek. “They will find you tomorrow, let this be a lesson, traitor.”

For half a night he had been in there. The machinery still made noise, regularly moved, but he is too hit by pain and vertigo to be as hyperaware as he should be.

When the sun had started coming up, the coffin hissed and started closing. Two defibrillators attached to be machine shifted unto his chest with a natural movement, as did two arm defibrillator electrodes. Both hurt, their underside covered with needles. In the dark of the coffin Steve only just now noticed blue bottles glowing iridescently, attached to the inner machinery of the coffin. Helpless groans became stronger when blue bottles emptied themselves into the machine with a hiss and he could feel the liquid get shot into him through the needles.

The coffin started glowing.

Agonizing pain made him scream into the rag. He screamed and screamed and screamed. Then there’s a loud sound of a short circuit and the coffin’s lights stop glowing. Over the sound of his loud breathing he could finally hear the desperate shouts: “Steve! Steve, please be alive!”

Steve tried to gulp in air, endorphins drowning his head’s ability to think and he felt like he could _breathe_ for the first time, like his heart was finally beating normally, no not normally, like it was even _stronger_ than that. “Bucky!” he cried out through the rag. He struggled against the restraints and to his relief they all loosened immediately. He spat out the rag and was pushing against the inner wall when he noticed that his hands were _huge_.

Bucky was trying to open the coffin, his super strength making it shake violently.

Then there was the sound of the police sirens and Bucky screaming for them to get Steve out.

Gunshots and Bucky became silent.

\----

Steve is locked into a room. He is wearing the uniform, but it is bloody and torn. Every wall looks like he has tried beating them down, fruitlessly. The room looks old, must be from a building before the Invasion. The tapestry is minty blue and flowery, but the floor is dirty, a black scotch mark on the metal door (the only thing new about the room). He is beaten, his own blood splotching the blue clothe, his fingers swollen and his face purple. He is not in life threatening danger (never is), but his arm is still broken and a huge chunk is missing from his right calf. He has given up on trying to get out and is just now listening to the impossible loud sound of fighting outside, Sentinels shooting and killing, Sentinels getting destroyed, explosions, shouts, screams. Sirens are almost just as loud and people running around in chaotic crowds. He knows he is in danger but none of that seems to matter. His heart is aching, bleeding from recent heartbreak and that is was leaves him defeated like this.

He leans back his head and his eyes are wet.

That’s when the water starts filling the room. As it runs into his thighs, it feels icy cold. He gasps but doesn’t move. He thinks about getting up and trying to get out again, knows it will be a waste of time. The water keeps flowing in. He is shaking badly now, from both blood loss and the cold. The water keeps filling the room, keeps filling it until he stops shaking. He is slipping, falling asleep –

“Steve!”

Steve opens his eyes and blinks. Wanda is patting him on the head, stroking his forehead and something in her eyes makes him worried, but he can’t think of why.

“Nightmare?” she asks soothingly. He looks around and Pietro is still asleep on her other side. The TV is white noise in front of them, the movie long since over.

“Yeah,” he breathes out.

“Sssh,” Wanda mummers and strokes his hair. “It is just all the stress catching up with you.”

“Probably,” he nods but something in him notices how eager she is to convince him what this is and – _what is wrong with him._ Why does he have to be so damn suspicious about everyone all the time?

She tries to convince him to go to bed, but he gets up and stalks into the observation room. He has been planning and putting up hotspots all over Manhattan for months now, and started establishing a network of various people whose daily eyes could be very valuable to him. But if he wants to really make the dream about that sort of spying system true, he would need a lot of money, a steady big income.

Steve has been picking and choosing people for an hour, when his frustrated energy makes him call up Tony.

“Mjem,” Tony mumbles.

Steve lifts his brows. “Tony? Are you sleeping?”

There’s a sound of something falling to the floor. Desperate rustling and – “Steve?”

Tony sounds shocked.

“Hey,” Steve says and eyes the watch. It’s barely 9 pm. “Were you sleeping?”

“Njo,” Tony mumbles.

“You totally were,” Steve teases. “I can hear sleep in your voice.”

“I am a hardworking teacher and you are just a brat.”

“You’re my age.”

“Shut up.”

Steve snickers. “Alright, I will let you continue your beauty sleep.”

“No,” Tony grunts and sounds like he is getting comfortable again. “I don’t need beauty sleep to be this handsome. You’ve woke me up, peasant, and now you have to entertain me.”

Steve is leaning back into the chair. When Tony is asking like that he doesn’t know what to say. “I’m going over an assignment.” Not a lie. “I can’t put it together nicely.”

He can almost hear the genius perk up. “You want me to help?” Then lower, almost a purr: “I could be your tutor.”

“And why would you do that,” Steve mumbles. “You don’t exactly need the money.”

A pause. “It keeps surprising me when you confront me about our differences.”

“Well, you did just call me a peasant.” Steve smiles and feels every inch of that tiny unpopular high school student. “You like it?”

“It’s different,” Tony says and Steve can’t tell if it is good different or bad. Tony continues: “You could pay me in other ways.”

Steve is swinging a pen and he throws it in the direction of the penholder. Warmth pools in his stomach and blood flushes his cheeks.

“Too forward?” Tony asks as Steve clears his throat.

Steve looks into the air. “I guess,” he allows. “It’s all pretty…” Not new. He has been playing this game before. “I’m interested in you. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

“You could come by for pizza.”

Steve prepares himself to say no. He has a free evening, already had a plan about what to use it on, he should go to one of his jobs – and that’s when the phone is snatched out of his hand. “Steve would love to,” Pietro says and has already moved away when Steve tries to snatch it back. Tony says something in the phone and Pietro grins evilly. “He will be there in ten minutes.”

“What are you doing?” Steve breaks out, red in the face but Pietro shrugs him off and tosses him the phone.

“Live a little,” he points before running off and that’s pretty big of Pietro to say, because Steve is actually kind of sure that the twins don’t have anyone except themselves and the team.

Steve ends up dressing in his old neighbor’s clothes, a big grey hoodie and a low hung pair of loose jeans. He instructs both Wanda and Pietro in the safety procedures if something happens and the electronic self-destructive system and then takes the metro. The metro disappears into an uphill tunnel, going for the floating part of Manhattan. There he allows himself to become nervous.

Steve is not a virgin. There had been, Peggy, who he had been crushing on but whom he had been pretty sure wouldn’t look at him twice. When she started looking at him twice, he assured himself she wouldn’t look at him in that _way_. Well, until that spring party where she had cornered him and kissed him. For a semester they had held hands, been the high school sweethearts, and Bucky had teased them for that. Peggy had been a stunning girl, just as beautiful and sharp as she was kind and Steve had been honored that she would pick someone like him. With how his diseases and medical bills were going, he wouldn’t be living healthily for a long time. But she had said he was a catch and had guided his small hands onto her body (which he in time had learnt to worship with touches, with tongue, with lips). But her parents (diplomats) hadn’t been interested in staying in the USA for a second more than they had to. They had tolerated an American boy like him, because he had agreed with them on the social and political issues, but they knew their daughter could have better. Being with Peggy and talking to her parents had been one of the things which had urged him to start up the Youtube channel. It had been refreshing and enlightening to hear about how the rest of the world saw the USA and indeed a learning, but hard lesson to hear about how far America had been left behind in the world economy. As the day of their departure neared, Peggy’s father had in secret told Steve about how the USA for years had been smuggling in minerals and other products the USA couldn’t manufacture or grow on their own, simply because some countries had stopped trading with them.

Of course Steve had had opinions about how excluding and isolating the USA probably wouldn’t help anyone, but it helped him understand.

Peggy had kissed him on the cheek and said that one day the world would see him for the great man he was. He tried not to put her vision to shame, tried to stand by her words. He hoped what he had become now, wouldn’t make her ashamed of him. She had probably seen him change things with his words, change things peacefully. Instead he was destroying Sentinels, infiltrating high security bases, breaking the law instead of changing it.

Peggy had left him more confident, but the girls still didn’t look his way, not until he had gotten his new body. After that, affairs with girls had all been superficial, his mind too occupied to use the girls for anything other than decorating his cover.

Steve wakes up as he gets off the metro and takes the stairs down to the New Fifth Avenue. He knows that the Stark Mansion used to be on ground with the rest of the Old Fifth Avenue, but as most of Manhattan elevated itself, Stark had made a platform for his mansion to roam among the skyscrapers. Stark had joked it was because the skyscrapers blocked all the sunlight, but Steve knows that after the Secret Invasion Stark had taken security measures. There had been classified plans of the Mansion being the control center of a dome which could protect the whole city (rumored to be powered by huge arc reactors all over underneath the city) and therefore Stark had needed the Mansion out of reach from enemies. Steve knows that other platforms, bridges, are in place now so the Mansion isn’t entirely excluded, but that those bridges could be detonated within seconds. He had blueprints at home, early plans of where the dome activator would be placed in the Mansion – but it was all still mostly unfinished plans, so it might as well could have been unreliable information.

It takes an hour _after_ Steve has reached Stark Tower, to actually reach Tony. The elevator ride is slow and he is going through a long security process though they have all been notified about his arrival. The staff are weary though as they take his computer (only school on it) and the security boss, Happy Hogan, is talking the staff from shooting a tracker into Steve’s thigh when Tony looses patience and breaks into the office. He is wearing a wife beater and a completely ruined pair of jeans, his hands greasy, fingers red (burns).

“What are you doing with him?” he snaps, looking every bit of the spoiled, billionaire’s son that he is. Steve is breathing fast, pushed up against the wall and he looks desperately in Tony’s direction when he shows.

Steve knows that his body isn’t technically superhuman, but tests would surely tell them that his bones are as hard as human bones can be, that his structure and muscle capacity is as good as a human being’s can get. It wouldn’t be much evidence in itself, but definitely a lead.

“Let go of him!” Tony commands and immediately all hands are off Steve. “Seriously, you wouldn’t think that I usually have people over!”

The woman who had sharply been stalling the whole check-up is the one to answer him. “Your friends usually don’t look like this!” she talks back and the whole security staff turns on Steve. He knows his build can look threateningly capable of a lot.

“I work out a lot,” he blushes. “I’m sorry, I can… I can come back later.”

He knows that his cover is a 100% in check, but internally he still frets that they will find out.

“No,” Tony says and looks like he is panicking, sad even. “You will come with me and have that stupid pizza, and meanwhile the security staff can settle their issues _here_.” With those words he takes Steve by the arm and drags him over to the door. Steve reluctantly nods at them, even as they glare back at him. He should’ve taken this into account. Even if he is neither a mutant nor a superhuman, he still looks like someone who has been trained to do the job superhumans do nowadays.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Tony immediately apologizes when they’re out of the staff’s sight. “I thought the checkup might take long, but I didn’t think they’d really think you were … you know…”

“Yeah…” Steve says through his teeth. No reason to get mad over it and say the things he had shouted, yelled and talked about so many times before. This isn’t Tony’s fault, that the world is set this way.

Tony still has his arm in Steve’s and as they cross the hallway, he starts relaxing again. A door automatically opens and in front of them is a glass bridge. He gasps when they step out on it, curiously looks to the sides and is then hit by an immediate vertigo as he sees how far down there is to the street.

“The glass is reinforced,” Tony tells him as if he has said this a million times before. “You could drive a bulldozer through here without it breaking. I just think dad gets a kick out of scaring the shit out of people.”

“It is overwhelming,” Steve agrees and stops to look down. “How far up is it?”

Tony smiles. “We’re in the stratospause.”

So a tolerable temperature and with some oxygen masks... “You don’t ever get any sort of acrophobia up here?”

“Well, I lived in the Mansion till I was twelve and at that point the bridges weren’t in place.”

“You are kidding me.”

“My father invented flying cars for a reason. Are you coming?”

“Sure.”

A little less distressed, having been distracted by the view, Steve follows Tony. Tony reaches up a hand for him and after a moment of hesitation, Steve takes it and they cross the last distance side by side. They reach a foyer.

“Welcome back, Sir,” an electronic voice greets them and Steve jumps.

Tony snickers. “That is JARVIS. He is the AI of the place.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rogers.”

“The pleasure is on my side,” Steve automatically replies while his mind runs a mile a minute. He had heard that the AI existed, and that it had been the most advanced of any kind, but it had been without basis, the rumors unreliable and if the Stark household really owned that advanced an AI why was it only used for personal reasons? No way could the Starks get away with it, the army would have craved to hold something like that. But maybe that is why the information was so unreliable in the first place, maybe Stark had made sure that no one could pursue the issue.

“Call me Steve, please,” Steve continues, letting it _go_. He tries not to feel guilty about gathering information, because he hates using Tony like this but he can’t help but take it all in. Steve frowns. “Would you like me to call you anything other than JARVIS?”

“Feel welcome to call me JARVIS.”

Steve frowns further. “You want me use certain pronouns for you?” he asks. “It really won’t be a problem for me at all.”

“Thank you for your consideration, Steve,” JARVIS says and something alike… feeling slips into his tone. So this is how it was. JARVIS masked how smart he? she? it? really is. “You can use the pronouns you please.”

But Steve is pretty sure that JARVIS would not be liked to called ‘it’. “If you are sure,” he replies dubiously, relaxing a little. He looks at Tony and finds him staring at him.

“What is it?” he asks and squirms. “I said something stupid, didn’t I?”

“No,” Tony says, oddly serious as something considering gets in his eyes. He smiles. “Tell me, Rogers, honestly, how do you feel about – “

“Tony?”                                                                                                                                                               

Steve stiffens, breaks into cold sweat by the sound of the voice (the whole world had listened to it for thirty years in the news, on the radio, in _declarations of war_ ) and turns around.

Mr. Stark is standing in a loose, worn down blue T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. He looks groggy, like he has just dragged himself out of bed. His mustache is sharp looking even though he has bed hair. He looks slow and human and he is not the weapon dealer right now, he is just a civilian, Tony’s dad.

The thought of that makes Steve relax again.

“Dad,” Tony smiles, lights up really and Steve thinks that Mr. Stark must have taken his job as a father seriously, because it is obvious that Tony adores his father. “This is Steve.”

Mr. Stark gives Steve the same onceover that the security staff had given and his eyes snap into focus. “Is that so,” Stark says and Steve can recognize that tone anywhere. Afterall, Mr. Carter had sounded the same.

“Mr. Stark.” His nerves quiver by the power of the protective possessiveness Stark is displaying and Steve steps forward and shakes his hand, surprised when Mr. Stark clenches the hand hard. Steve should say ‘It’s an honor to meet you’ but it isn’t. Not really. “I’ve heard much about you.”

“Funny, I don’t think I’ve seen your face here before,” Mr. Stark says just as Tony groans “ _Dad_ ” and Steve straightens up.

“You’re from the army, boy?” his father asks.

“No,” Steve says, surprised. There is literally nothing about the army right now which appeals to him. “People often ask that though.”

“You look disciplined.”

Steve lifts his brows. Disciplined? That is an odd word to use. “I guess my parents raised me right,” he replies.

“Dad,” Tony pushes himself into Steve’s space. “Security has already been through this, he isn’t dangerous.”

Nothing in Mr. Stark’s demeanor calms down by this information.

“I guess you’d think…” Steve flushes and looks down. He shouldn’t have met Stark’s eyes, isn’t that defying the alpha in the reptile brain or something? Oh wow, he is screwing up this badly. “I’m a sophomore at the school Tony is a lecturer at.”

“You’re taking his classes?” Mr. Stark asks, still sounding hostile.

“Yes,” Steve replies, refusing to shift uncomfortably. And before Howard would go there, he continued: “I figured I’d seduce him to get better grades.”

Tony says “Oh my god” but Mr. Stark finally smiles and says: “Yeah? And how is that working out for you?”

“Not so well, I have to admit. I thought that the fact he is young would make him vulnerable, but I guess he isn’t as naïve as I thought.” With this Steve casts a fond glance at Tony. “He is too smart for his own good.”

“I bet you,” Mr. Stark nods and pats Steve’s shoulder. “Well boys, I will be moving on then.”

“ _Bye_ , Dad.”  
Mr. Stark moves on and he is barely out of hearing range before Tony yells out: “ _OH my god,_ he is so embarrassing sometimes!”

“He is fine,” Steve grins and shoves at his shoulder. “He just wants what is best for you.”

JARVIS luckily interferes: “Sir, your pizza has arrived.”

“Thanks, J.”

Tony leads him into the movie theater and puts on _Scarface_. It’s a movie they’ve both seen before, and it’s good strategy, something to talk about when running out of subjects and something which they can ignore.

The green sofa is giant, built for bigger crowds, the walls are soundproof and the room already smells of warm food and body heat. Tony sighs and settles down and Steve starts eating the still warm pizza (a luxury in his standard).

After a while they settle in together and watch the film.

Steve feels nervous and calm at the same time, as Tony’s bare arm brushes his. Tony is silent, watching the movie with a distant expression and Steve notices his lean figure, the smooth skin. Tony is still olive toned even without the California sun, but his hair is getting darker again – a little black even. His eyes and brows are dark, harmonious with the jaw line and chin. His stubbles have become a bit of a transparent beard on his face and it looks really good on him.

“So, Rogers,” Tony says without looking away from the movie. “Are you gonna kiss me or not?”

Steve looks away and feels blood rush into his head. Tony turns his face to look at him. Slowly he crawls unto Steve. Steve stiffens as Tony spreads his legs almost obscenely around Steve’s thighs and is so abruptly near that Steve gasps. Something lights up, right there. With gun shots and shouting from the television, in the dark of the evening, something takes flight and Steve he – he feels so focused and self-aware.

Tony puts his mouth on Steve’s and where their lips meet, it tingles. Steve’s heart beats faster as Tony kisses him harder and Steve breathes in sharply and pushes back, angling his head. Tony puts his hands on Steve’s cheeks and breathes in through his nose, before he opens his mouth and licks at Steve’s closed mouth, letting the tip of his tongue glide in between Steve’s lips, just so he can softly bite them. It makes Steve shiver and he opens his mouth, meeting Tony’s tongue with hesitance even though Tony tastes _good._ Very good. Steve reaches out and takes Tony by the shoulders, pleasure running steadily and heavily through his body. Tony hums at him, and kisses him harder.

Steve decides he likes that and stares as Tony pulls back to look at him for a moment, before he presses back in again, their kisses light and fleeting now. Tony’s hands are moving around on him now, into his hair, gliding against his scalp and intimately around his neck, before they continue down to his shoulders, sliding down his arms, almost reassuringly.

The kisses doesn’t escalate, rather they relax as if they’ve both passed the test. Steve allows himself to dig his fingers into Tony’s hair, and let another hand rub down Tony’s side. Tony presses himself further into Steve and it is like fuel on embers, it fires Steve up. Steve feels a hand slide down his chest, squeeze a pec and then slip down to his abdomen, laying it there, a heavy, warm weight, before it –

Steve puts a hand on his hand and opens his eyes. Tony does the same. “Moving a bit quick there,” Steve says and then clears his throat when his voice comes out all hoarse.

Something dark flashes through Tony’s face and then abruptly Tony is pulling back. “Then what is it that you want?” he asks.

“Tony?”

“Tell me, Steve, are you really are spy?”

Would Steve answer that if he was? But Steve can’t say he isn’t a spy. In a way, he has sneaked Captain America with him. “Tony…”

“You are, aren’t you,” Tony says, scornfully.

“I’m not sent from the government, Tony,” Steve talks back.

“Then what is it?” Tony shouts. “You don’t want my money, you don’t want my genius and now you don’t want sex. Then what is it that you want?”

Steve is frankly getting horrified at what Tony is implying. “I don’t want any of your possessions Tony, what makes you think that – “

“Get out.”

“What?”

“You heard me. _Get out_.”

Steve is very confused but stumbles up because if Tony doesn’t want him … Tony looms over his shoulder as he gathers his jacket and his backpack. “Listen, Tony – “

“I don’t want to hear it,” Tony interrupts calmly and maybe Steve should wait until the younger guy has calmed down. “Perfect Steve with his straight A’s and perfect butt and stupid smile, I don’t believe it.”

“Tony, I just want us to go a little slow!” Steve argues.

“Shut up, I know guys like you, filled up with hormones, you need to fuck all the time.”

“What?!” Steve flies around. But then Tony has left him in the foyer and JARVIS reluctantly directs him unto the glass bridge.

When Steve has gotten his laptop back and been kicked out of the building (the staff looking satisfied), he calls up Wanda. “Do I just have one of those faces, because everyone has been treating me as an asshole,” Steve says.

“What happened?” she asks.

“He kicked me out,” Steve says. “And the whole Tower laughed as it happened.”

“Wait, Tower?”

“Stark Tower.”

There’s a pause and then the sound of something breaking as she, probably accidently, unleashes a hex bolt.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Are you dating Tony Stark?”

“Not anymore, I think.”

She hangs up.

\----

When he comes home she is standing by the door and several things are broken. Pietro is hiding somewhere. Steve slowly enters and prepares himself for battle.

“You’re dating Howard Stark’s son,” she say accusingly. “He is dangerous.”

“No he isn’t,” he disagrees.

“You’re dating the enemy!” she shrieks.

“He makes computers!” he snaps back. “He is Registered, he knows what we are fighting for.”

“He supports the Act, because his daddy made sure he wouldn’t feel any of the negative consequences,” Wanda coldly says. “ _He_ hasn’t tried being thrown off to the army and _forced to take a tour_. They haven’t tried to brainwash or duplicate him. _He is not one of us!_ ”

“We don’t know if he supports the Act,” Steve says. “If he does, we can take it then.”

She glares at him for a while, but then seems to let it go. “So?”

“So?”

“Did you get any information out of the visit?”

He flinches and looks away. He has tried not to do exactly that, but he _couldn’t turn it off._ “I’ve been dumped,” he says and she seems to deflate. “Can we not talk about this till tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow we’re doing the raid for Baxter Building.”

“I know.” He tries not to sound like he is yelling (he is) and walks into his bedroom where he stands, clenching his fists, trying not to feel like hitting something. Then he moves to take off his clothes, before he walks into the shower. The water is not warm, never has been, and he recalls Pietro complaining about it. It hasn’t ever bothered Steve before, just been different from what he was used to in the beginning, but after the dream about ice cold water, he shivers and makes the bath as short as possible. When he tucks himself into bed, it is already midnight. He thinks of how big of a fool he has been. Of course he just couldn’t be Captain America for some hours. He had some words to say, some avenging and somehow that had started being all he was. He sits down with his sketchbook to proof himself wrong, but nothing creative wants to come from his hands and he looks down at them, big, skin soft, but leathery, hard to penetrate, perfect for fighting.

It isn’t his hands.

He crawls into his bed, overcome with a strong sense of hopelessness.

\----

Three AM an asshole is calling Steve.

He feels bad about calling the person an asshole right away (it could be serious), but the phone tone is from his private phone, not from any of the other Avengers and someone random from his life calling three AM qualifies as an asshole.

He gets ups, and picks up the phone. “Rogers,” he slurs.

It’s silent for a while and Steve slips into Cap mode, his senses coming alive when a hesitant voice asks: “Steve?”

He recognizes it.

“No wait, don’t hang up,” Tony hurries to say. Steve had no such plan. “Look, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

It’s not. It’s really, really not. But Steve has to be okay with some things to function and not be so damn angry all the time.

“No I… I almost pressured you into sex. You didn’t want. And I’m. Sorry.”

The sincerity does works. “Tony, if it is something I did – “

“You didn’t. That’s why I became angry. You don’t do as I expect and I don’t know what to do with that. It scares me that I don’t know what you want from me. That you seemingly want nothing.”

Steve sits up. “You have obviously been hanging around the wrong people then. People shouldn’t expect anything in return every time they give you something.”

“Or maybe you are a little too good to be true,” Tony counters. “Seems – seemed like that to me.”

Steve rolls back on the bed. “Funny, because I am not doing much. I’m pretty sure you’ve been hanging around with too many rich kids.”

“Maybe,” Tony allows and then seems to deflate. “It’s just – I’m Registered, you know? And my father is overprotective because of that. Why would someone like you date someone like me?”

Steve is silent for a while. “When you put it like that, my reasons sound pretty dumb.”

“Let me hear them.”

“You’re interesting. You’re funny. You don’t treat people like they’re dumb, even though they probably seem like that to you.” Steve pauses. He can’t outright say that he thinks Registration is unethical, but… “I don’t think you being Registered – or anyone Registered – make them bad people.”

Tony breathes out on the other end, sounding relieved, as if that is what he has been waiting for.

“Want to meet up someplace?” Steve asks.

“… yeah. I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I should tag this paranoia!Steve? Though it is justified. So happy for the kudos and comments received :D Excusing any typos and errors. If there are any holes or something bugging you about the story, let me know. Thanks for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And twenty long minutes after, Steve is done with his mocha and Tony is on his second cup of coffee, still only replying in one-sentenced answers. Only stubbornness from Steve’s side is holding up the conversation and Steve starts wondering why he couldn’t just have dropped his pants that evening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, long time coming. Sorry about that. As always, I'd be really happy to know what you guys think or if anything looks weird. Thanks in advance for reading! ^^

When Tony shows up at the café he is wearing a cap, a hoodie and big sunglasses to hide his face. Steve had forgotten all about taking his public identity into account, but thankfully no one seems to notice the billionaire son when he slides through the place and sits down in front of Steve, who immediately reaches across the table and squeezes his hand. “I’m glad you showed,” the blond says. There are not a lot of people in the 24 hour café aside from some early workers and two truck drivers. There are still a couple of hours left till dawn and the added amount of five hours sleep is enough to make Steve feel well-rested. Before Tony had shown up, Steve had gone ahead and planned a work schedule for the next week and has left his Saturday open. Hopefully Tony would like to share it with him. Steve is almost too nervous to ask though and he reminds himself that it is normal to be nervous, even afraid, about being rejected when the latest rejection was _last night_ and Steve is trying to mature about it and let it go (he knew from the beginning that Tony was complicated and it’s a miracle things have been going so smoothly between them so far), and still a part of him can’t help but be a bit resentful at Tony for placing this fear in him.

“I’m glad you wanted to see me,” Tony smiles but there’s something in it, as if Tony thinks that he owes Steve now. Immediately Steve feels bad about his bitterness.

Tony is just an insecure kid too.

Steve has to make them even – he has to communicate on a level Tony understands. “I could really use some coffee,” he hints and immediately Tony waves at the barista. When the barista makes way to them and asks for their order, Tony tells her as if words hurt him, then sighs and his lips are a thin line. When Steve has sent her off, he reaches out, this time letting his hand stay on top of Tony’s. It twitches for a second, as if it wants to pull away and then stills.

“It’s alright, relax,” the student tries and he can’t see Tony’s eyes through the colored glass, but the air is clearly tensioned with frustration. Steve grew up in an orphanage and has a proud record of putting kids to sleep within ten minutes but right now he does not have the faintest idea what to do to make Tony relax.

“How is JARVIS?” Wow, that was dumb thing to say.

Tony looks down. “He is fine, I guess.”

And twenty long minutes after, Steve is done with his mocha and Tony is on his second cup of coffee, still only replying in one-sentenced answers. Only stubbornness from Steve’s side is holding up the conversation and Steve starts wondering why he couldn’t just have dropped his pants that evening. The thought makes him almost flinch because if someone else had said that to Steve, he would have bristled and be angry. A part of him knows that that isn’t a healthy relationship. So he puts those thoughts aside.

Still, he can’t help but wonder if this is worth holding unto. He sincerely likes Tony, but…

Maybe Tony doesn’t want him this way. Maybe this is Tony’s way of breaking things off. Probably.

So Steve does what he shouldn’t do, what he hates to do; he starts peeling off layers. “I’m old fashioned. I just don’t do that. Okay?”

And that seems to be what Tony has been waiting for. His face snaps up and Steve can feel his glare through the lenses. “That’s fucking weird, because half of the girls from my classes are claiming to have had sex with you,” he hisses angrily.

“I did a lot of partying when I started college and sure, I experimented a bit,” Steve defends. “But I don’t drink,” _can’t get drunk,_ “and most people in college do, drunk people aren’t able to consent so I can very calmly tell you that those rumors are very exaggerated. Besides, I only went to those parties for a few months, I’m on _second year now_.”

Tony looks surprised, his brows reaching his hairline. “So you haven’t been laid for over a year?”

“Really mature, Tony,” Steve snaps.

Tony lifts his hands and grimaces apologetically. “Okay. You’re serious. I’m serious too, okay? So we’ll go on dates, right?” He quickly glances around, something questioning in his gaze.

Steve rolls his eyes, but can’t help but smile. “This doesn’t count as a date, Tony.”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Tony half-heatedly objects. “Okay. What about I buy you dinner?”

For the first time since Steve was kicked out of the Tower, his clenching stomach unfurls. “Actually,” he says and leans forward. “I was thinking about the Cyber Circus. It’s in town this week. How does Saturday sound?”

\----

Next morning Steve sees nothing of Tony – which he actually thinks is good. He doesn’t need distractions right now. He goes through classes with only half of his mind, the other focusing on the planned raid. The raid in itself is simple: grab, scan and photograph anything that looks important. Main goal is information about the Negative Zone and main focus is to leave as little suspicion about their goal as possible.

-          _Iron Man, are you at the ready?_

-          _Heya Cap. I’m ready._

-          _You will be holding all the information we gather, Iron Man. Everything will be sent to you directly._

-          _You haven’t told me this._

-          _We can’t risk getting caught with the information._

-          _And I can?_

-          _You said your side of the line was safe?_

-          _I’m a lot closer to the enemy than you might know._

Steve reels back. He hasn’t ever heard anything like this before.

-          _Iron Man, are you Registered?_

-          _Yes._

He is mad. Infuriated. But most of all, he is scared. – _Tell me how they’re not watching us right now,_ he types in.

-          _They can’t._

-          _How? Tell me how we know that? If they have been watching you on your end, they know that something might be up. Everything we have talked about is at risk._

-          _Because I’m having this conversation in my brain._

Steve blinks and watches the next sentence appear on the screen, quickly. Steve has always thought that Iron Man must be an insanely quick typer, when really…

-          _My brain is a computer. A super computer as a matter of fact – the strongest computer on Earth. Nothing gets past it._

-          _… does that mean that you can hack things with your mind?_

-          _Yes, but Reed’s system would detect my brain right away. It’d end up with a counterattack. I know that his defense systems won’t get past mine, but I’d still be in serious trouble._

Steve sighs. – _That is very important information you’ve been holding back, Iron Man._

-          _Yeah, yeah I know._

-          _You say your brain is a supercomputer. Is there anything else I need to know?_

-          _The thing that made my brain this way was a virus. It has infected my whole body to be enhanced._

-          _No ‘buts’?_

-          _Except the possibility that one day someone will program a better virus, which will blue screen me? No._

-          _How big is that possibility?_

-          _Let’s just say the technology and my maintenance is too far ahead for regular people to do that. Reed could probably do it, but it’d take him years. Also, regular people’s brains get invaded by telepaths all the time, so it’s safe to say that my brain is even safer than yours._

-          _Do you still want to hold the data?_

-          _Yes. I just told you there’s no better place for it to be._

-          _If people find out that you’re Iron Man, there will be a lot of focused attention to crack open your head, just saying._

-          _I’m being careful._

-          _I think it’s too risky._

-          _No more risky that what the Avengers do every day._

-          _You can say a lot about the retired superheroes, but they wouldn’t let anything happen to us if we got caught. We’d be trialed and thrown in jail like regular super villains. But if the government knows that you hold information, they won’t be very nice about it._

-          _Cap, **you need to let me do this**. You think your life is hard? Try being Registered. Try being watched every day, asked for, fought over, forced to do work in the military you don’t want to do, just so you can live in peace._

Steve leans backwards. If he had known. – _Let us get you out. Please, let us get you. I have space, the safety measures to keep you hidden. We can protect you._

-          _Too many people know my face, my reputation. I can’t just disappear._

-          _I’m not leaving you behind._

-          _Don’t tell me you’d risk it all._

-          _We all would._

-          _You owe me nothing._

-          _We wouldn’t have reached this far without you. Where are you held?_

-          **_Stop this, Cap!_**

Steve curses as the screen blackens and his computer shuts down. He smacks down the screen and breathes deeply into his hands, and thereafter tries frantically to turn on his computer. It feels warm and overheated underneath his hands, and it is only when it has cooled down, that it agrees to reboot and Steve doesn’t waste time to consider if Iron Man really wants to talk to him before he logs on to the network again.

-          _Was that you?_

-          _Yes._

-          _This doesn’t make you any different in my eyes._

-          _I know. Think of it like this: You have an insider with high clearance. I could really mess things up from my position. I’m more useful this way._

-          _I wish you didn’t keep feeling that way._

\----

Steve met Falcon in high school, where they had both taken courses in law. Sam always said that he wanted to be a lawyer or perhaps a social worker, but when his grandma died of heart failure he barely had time to finish the senior year. To not be a burden on his siblings, Sarah and Gideon, he did what few regular humans did at the time and enlisted in the army. Steve had received letters – Sam talked about their eternal search for resources, the treatment of superhuman which was an odd balance of obvious need and unfair discrimination. He talks about the fights the X-men still put up sometimes, about his training, the silver lining of good they did. He doesn’t tell Steve about how some superhumans were brutally trained and then forced into new projects, missions and fights; he doesn’t tell Steve about how some superhumans simply just disappeared from the record. He doesn’t tell Steve or his siblings, that he would get thrice as much money if he joined a “research team” which actually meant experimentation on regular humans.

The letters stopped. A year later, Sam is sent home and the sickish Steve has been reported missing, while Captain America is starting his second year in college.

Falcon is the only one who has actually had combat training, who has been in battles, who is a fighter: He is the team’s offensive force, the only one carrying weapons. When he had come back from the army, he had spent about a week as a well-recognized soldier with a lot of medals and a lot of shame.

Steve offered him a way out and Falcon joined the team and was deleted of the database. It allowed him to live a regular life in a new place, but when he was flying with the team the world knew - H.A.M.M.E.R., the National Guard and even NYPD – knew his identity, his real name. The team had spent many operations burning and deleting all information about Project Redwing and the only successful experiment.

Steve doesn’t know if it is being a soldier or the way Sam was treated as a soldier which has made him so unhesitant to use weapons. He trusts Falcon, he trusts him to do the right thing and make the ethically right decisions. And that’s that, Steve won’t discuss it with himself or others any further.

“Falcon?” Steve calls out, tapping the com. “Are you at your position?”

“Sure, Cap.”

“You’ve forgotten to put on your voice alternator.”

There’s some rustling and Steve checks in with the team members’ positions. Madison Avenue is busy and floated with security. He looks down at the building plans; the first one dating as far back as 1949. The rest of the building hasn’t supposedly upgraded much since then; only the upper five floors where the Fantastic Four live have been rebuild countless times and every time so completely different that the current structure is still a bit unsure – even now when Steve has the supposed most recent building plans.

He takes a deep breath and picks up the solenoid activator. Some weeks ago Sam had reported that he had gained entrance to Baxter Building because of some business about his army savings and Steve had grabbed the opportunity to send him in with a Wakandan analyzer he had gotten his hands. Sam had put the analyzer on the scanners, and Bruce had gathered a technical report of what the scanners needed. Steve had sent the report to Iron Man, who had managed to build the solenoid. Now, the question is if Reed has had time to change out the scanner or if the solenoid will even work. Steve has faith that it does.

“Are you ready, Cap?” Wanda asks. She is standing behind him and he tries to match the image of Scarlet Witch with Wanda. Scarlet Witch wears a corset, leather pants, laced boots, nimble gloves and a sleeved cape which enhances her usually narrow shoulders (she kind of reminds him of Magneto actually). The chaos magic pulses on her skin, makes her hair and clothes look completely red and Steve knows now that the red film of magic also serves as DNA wipes and something which makes her electronic signature blurry – both through voice and camera – even misdirecting.

Steve nods at her and Pietro gets up. The male mutant’s impulsiveness and impatient behavior is for once an advantage. It would do their purpose well: Pietro got sidetracked so easily and the raid would, from his side, without doubt look completely random because it _was_. And they needed as much information as quickly as possible and Pietro is the right man for that.

Wanda reaches out her hands, and Steve waits for the red to cover his body, before they cross the street.

It’s funny how the world just stops noticing them. The cars just drive on, people bump into them, doesn’t look at confused and just carries on. A few doves even almost fly directly into their heads.

Steve loves magic. In a world where everything is watched and scanned and he is up against geniuses, magic is the best, most irrational, almost always foolproof way to cheat your way through. Sure, Wanda could only hold the spell for so long, but she is still a very powerful, very good asset to have.

It’s 10 am and the visitor’s center is open in the ground floor of Baxter Building. Almost no people are there at this time of the year; normally it’d be crowded with tourists and visitors looking at the multimedia show of the Fantastic Four. For now, only a cleaning lady and two guards are there.

In all there are four elevators, only one going all the way up to the Fantastic floors. Steve eyes the fourth. It’d make things difficult if the solenoid activator failed. They’d have time to get away sure, but the FF would be aware that someone was trying to break in and you did not need Reed and Ben Grimm on guard.

It isn’t only the solenoid failing that worries Steve. The mission would also be a failure if the elevator notified the Fantastic Four that they had visitors. The Fantastic Four were all in town – otherwise the five floors would be completely impossible to break into – and even if the elevator let them in and they passed the scans, they would know that strangers had entered the building.

That is where Iron Man comes in. He said he’d make sure to block the transmitter’s signal, so not even Roberta would know they were coming and meanwhile the spell would keep the scanners and cameras from picking them up. Unsure data could freeze the whole place down, but Wanda has insured him that the spell would make sure that the scanners accepted them. Whatever that meant. Steve would just have to trust her word since they didn’t really have a lot of other options.

“You’ve blocked the cameras?” Steve asks.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Quicksilver, now.”

Pierre Picolino’s sculpture is knocked down in the other room. As guards rush towards the famous sculpture’s art display, Steve sends a quiet prayer and then activates the solenoid, Pietro already back at his sister’s side. It sends out the beam, it hums a _ping._ This is the moment where Iron Man would either alarm them and say he couldn’t prevent the signal from getting out, or the moment where the elevator would open up and let them inside.

-          _Get inside._

Not a second after Iron Man’s ok, the elevator opens and the three teenagers stiffly step inside. The elevator door closes, and the inside equipment scans them.

Steve holds his breath.

The elevator starts moving.

With a relieved exhale, Steve looks at Wanda and she is sweating a bit, her face pinched in concentration. Thankfully the ride is short and they both look at her for approval when the doors open on 33th floor. Wanda nods at little sharply at them before she almost floats towards the computer center, where she places the deencryptor. She waves them on as the scanners relax temporarily and while she raids Reed’s research, Steve and Pietro lets the elevator lift them up to the 34th floor where Steve gets off, trusting Pietro to cause the right amount of distraction in the hangar bay, while he places another deencryptor in the data analysis room. It’s important that Pietro doesn’t destroy anything because no matter what Steve thinks, the Fantastic Four are still doing the world good and the Avengers shouldn’t sabotage that.

Steve enters the conference room first, scanning all documents, plans and schedules, making sure not to leave anything out of place. Next is the giant map room (really creative name, guess why it is called that?) where he memorizes their next trips and other random marks on the map, afterwards taking photos of various maps Steve has no idea what is showing and no time to figure out. He gets some confidential news clips from the projection room, photos of various international projects and files of people Steve hasn’t ever heard of before. When he is done he goes to access the labs and immediately he sees surveillance footage of the Negative Zone cells. He forces himself away from the screens of the fallen superheroes and breaks open the operating system for the rocket. It probably wouldn’t be necessary, but Steve thought it a good idea to maybe plant a failsafe to stall the rocket launch a bit if the Avengers needed it.

When he finishes that, he runs back to the surveillance screens where he unleashes the cage of mechanical grasshoppers. They were built to endure a lot, but there were only so much pressure they could take if Reed found them and wanted to know what was inside. Soon the labs are twinkling as the grasshoppers connect and do all sorts of scans which Steve is blissfully oblivious about. They are used to hack foreign computers system overseas and Steve doesn’t really know if they’re strong enough for Reed’s handmade technology, but he thinks they might be worth a try. He can’t find the prisoners’ interrogations, reports, not anything about their course on the Negative Zone at all.

-          _Cap, you have five minutes._

Within two the grasshoppers finish their scans. Steve runs around, collecting them and he can’t fucking remember if he found all 33 of them or just 32, but then the elevator opens and he needs to go. Iron Man is fighting the lockdown, but the detectors have started glowing red by the time he and Scarlet Witch have reached the roof. That’s when Falcon lands and it is getting embarrassing how often Steve calls the white and red costumed hero _guardian angel_ in his head. Scarlet Witch looks around and shouts “Where is my brother?!” when the sounds of glass breaking almost drowns out their conversation. And there Pietro is, probably grinning madly underneath his mask as he navigates the Fantasticar onto the roof.

They all get on board and as Pietro is taking off, Steve begins to foolishly think that they will get through this. That’s when the detectors start shooting at them. They duck as the lasers burn holes into the side of the car, and Steve makes eye contact with Falcon.

Falcon nods once and stands up, shielding himself with his aluminum adamantium wings while he grabs the two guns attached to his wings. The bullets pierce the shooting detectors easily, but quite a few is needed to completely destroy them and a net of red lasers are forming right over their heads, roofing, and blocking their way out.

Steve is starting to consider sending Scarlet in, as unreliable her hex bolts tends to be, when something sings through the air, right past Steve’s ear and pierces a detector. Steve has time to frown and think “Is that an arrow?” before the arrow explodes and they are all relieved from one less shooter.

Falcon engages three detectors, allowing Pietro to get up and once again take control of the Fantasticar’s flight while the arrows are raining down on the detectors, efficiently and precisely destroying them. The steady build of the roof stalls and once again Pietro takes control and flies them through the net. There are endless seconds where the engine is charging power before the car shoots forward, moving them far away from Baxter building. Relieved, the Avengers straightens up and Steve can hear Pietro breathing quickly as he easily dodges the buildings.

Something hits Steve in the back, making him fall forward with a shout. Piercing, burning, agonizing pain blazes through his skin and he feels body fluid drip down his back and legs. He looks up and around, only to see a matching Fantasticar only about a hundred meters behind them and –

“Cap, Torch is on us!” Falcon shouts, loading his guns and taking aim. He looks conflicted and Steve feels the same way. Shooting at a superhero, shooting at anybody to escape, it isn’t right. “Should I distract him?”

“No, stay down,” Cap commands. “Scarlet Witch!”

“I’ve got it!” Wanda shouts, unstably getting to her feet as the wind pushes them down in their rushed flight. From here Steve can see Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic in the car, but they’re not aiming anything at them and honestly the Torch is a bigger concern.

Wanda lifts her hands, screaming red power encircling them and with a battle cry she flings the power at him with all that she has got. The Torch parries them all smoothly with years of practice on his hands, but it is not actually hitting him that Steve wants and Wanda knows this without telling, she knows that he hopes her chaos magic will do the job on outing Torch without hurting him.

Steve jumps into the passenger seat. More carefully she takes his place on the backseat, getting a better aim and resumes shooting. “Quicksilver, let me take over, I have a plan,” he shouts and when Steve has the wheel, he carefully lowers the car, making it harder to maneuver the car but easier to lose the other Fantasticar. He leans forward, navigating the mode system of the car. Space setting, air pressure setting, fire setting -

“I’ve got him!” Scarlet screams in triumph and Steve spares a nanosecond to look back and see Torch completely clothed in a burning flag, trying to get it off while barely missing buildings.

“On with your seatbelts, people!” he shouts and picks the last option, thick glass folding around the car, forming a windshield.

Steve pulls the handle and the Fantasticar dives straight down towards the highway. “Hold on!” he yells as they start screaming, the highway nearing them disturbingly quickly and it is almost impossible to navigate the car as it is strongly caught in the drop, but with a sharp twist the car barely dodges the highway, making a head dive towards the murky water and static net shielding it. With a crash the car breaks through and it is falling deeply into the blackness of water in Old Manhattan.

The screaming turns into dry sobs and whimpering and Steve is gasping for air. His hands have dented the wheel and he forces himself to let go of it, breathing heavily into the cockpit. The car has gone from dropping rapidly to just steadily sinking and Steve studies the reformed cockpit; it had gone from flying mode into the underwater setting. He bites his lip and looks at the screen, trying to sort out the information. Alright. He shifts the gears and the car’s propellers activate, making their sinking stop. The headlights of the car flicker on, and two stripes of light cuts razor-sharp through the dirty water.

“Oh my god!” Falcon is breathing heavily, the dry sobs coming from him. “How did you know that the thing, the car, it could take your, what if we -”

“Wipes, remember?” Steve reminds him.

“You do know there is a reason why no one does laps in Old Manhattan, right?” Pietro shouts beside him as he looks around. The water is still too dark for them to make anything out, but the sensors are picking up sounds already.

“I didn’t see a better option,” Steve replies, turning to look at the back seats. Falcon’s panic attack has passed and he looks bombed and exhausted; Scarlet is sitting still, completely paralyzed, her face blank.

For a while they are just hanging still in the water, trying to calm down.

It takes something sounding like whale songs – although too sharp, too screeching – to fill the car to make Steve drive (sail?) forwards. Beside him Pietro has frozen.

“OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT!?” Falcon screams and points and Steve looks up to see two small human hands on the glass. They look like a child’s but they have webs between the fingers.

“Ignore it,” Steve says, because there is not much else they can do. He frowns as he contemplates what to do if it – or anything else – attacks. He doesn’t know this car’s defensive measures underwater well enough. They will just have to make it to the surface as quickly as possible, but not at a location where the authorities could be waiting.

“WHERE ARE WE HEADING!?” Falcon bellows.

The car shakes.

“We are gonna die,” Wanda moans.

“We are not gonna die,” Steve says and speeds up; hoping that whatever which had shaken them wouldn’t try to follow. “We need to turn off the lights.”

“ARE YOU CRAZY?”

“Falcon, stop screaming and take care of Scarlet.”

Sam obediently turns his attention towards Scarlet who has been quietly whining. Steve turns off the lights, leaving the car in complete darkness. Steve stares at the puzzling navigating system, and taps through the menus of the underwater mode. Scarlet is doing Falcon’s breathing exercises, when Steve finally finds the electronic compass. So… they were somewhere in Old Manhattan. He sets the compass towards Washington Heights and the car sets to sail towards outer Manhattan where the dam would hopefully be unguarded. If it was, they’d get through anyways; the security would have to be thin if the whole dam was watched. The only issue would be if the guards were human; Steve can feel from himself and his team that the adrenaline would make it hard for them to pull their punches.

“There might be a GPS in this thing, Cap,” Falcon says at some point. “We might be supervised right now.”

“The signal won’t get through the water,” Steve answers. “Remember the last searching team last week? I’ve got intel that Howard Stark himself made the sub and they still couldn’t track the crew when it went missing. If Howard couldn’t, I doubt that Reed has figured out anything better yet. Scarlet, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she snaps. “I can deactivate surveillance.”

“Do that.”

She nods once and starts to glow red.

Steve’s eyes are getting used to the dark and sweat starts to trickle down his spine, mixing with the congealed blood and pus. They are swimming through Times Square. One of the few things New Manhattan hadn’t tried to duplicate for reasons Steve never knew. It looks eerie, the cars still open doored and in lines, old neon signs and movie posters from years old movies still up, traffic lights dead, everything grown over with seaweed and moss.

Steve gasps.

Something – human size – crawls up a building near them. He stares at it, but it is covered with something dark (like black, tattered clothing) and Steve can’t see what it is. It crawls away like a spider before he has time to think about it.

“What are you seeing?” Falcon growls.

“I don’t know,” Steve replies. But now he is starting to take notice of what isn’t seaweed but rather human sized creatures moving. He directs the car upwards and away from Times Square.

“Can’t we just swim along the surface?” Wanda nervously asks, the car smelling like short circuited machinery. She has stopped glowing. “Can’t you do it quicker?”

Grimly Steve shakes his head. “We don’t know if the car has features to prevent decompression sickness. We will have to do it slowly.”

For around twenty minutes they swim without disturbance, Steve taking a big circle around Central Park. He does not want to know what sort of life has inhabited there, can’t risk it. They swim right underneath Baxter Tower at some point and Steve just doesn’t want to upset the team further, so he stays quiet about it until they’ve reached East Harlem. At this point they’re above the twilight zone and the light does well for them, even as the air has gotten panicky and clammy. “We’ve just crossed Madison Avenue.”

“Where are we going?” Scarlet asks.

“To the outer Manhattan,” Steve replies, careful to not let the car hit anything, to not let it make any sort of noise. “We are giving this back to them after we’ve cleaned it.”

“What?!” Pietro shouts. “I just stole it!”

“Exactly, you stole it,” Steve says. “We don’t steal.”

“No, _you_ don’t steal, I definitely steal.”

“Shut your face, Silver,” Falcon snaps.

Steve is about to turn to glare at them when Falcon very, very quietly says: “Cap. Seven o clock.”

Steve looks down and promptly screams like a little girl, the twins joining in.

A woman, a huge woman with a face as big as a car is staring up at them with big, round blue eyes, pupils which looks far too small, almost considered “needle hole sized” if it wasn’t because she could open her mouth and swallow them any second. She is so pale she almost looks grey skinned, and her skinny, naked body is so big that Steve looses view of it as it disappears into the darkness. Her hair is long and black and floating around her face, slimy with various green plants.

She reaches out a giant palm and Steve is stepping hard on the gas pedal so fast that they all slap backwards as the car darts through the water. The palm is too slow, her movement almost looks strained. The woman just crooks her head and –

 _smiles_ , her teeth looking long and yellow. If the sight of her wasn’t so eerie, Steve would probably have noticed how beautiful the woman actually is, her features fine and pixie like. The smile turns into a large, gaping mouth as she watches them disappear, thankfully not looking like she is going to pursue them. When her staring face has disappeared in the dirty water, Steve’s hands are shaking badly, his back is throbbing from the burn and he just wants to go _home._

From there it doesn’t take long to reach the dam which is blessedly not guarded. Steve changes the car’s setting and it obediently takes flight and lands on the other side of the dam, which has been framed with lots of trees and fences. They all get out, breath in the fresh air and without words, they hide the Fantasticar away.

Now covered in grass stains and mud, their communicators screech loudly as they come online.

-          **_WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?_**

“Oh uh,” Steve says. – _Heya Iron Man. We’ve just reached outer Manhattan. We got away in one piece._

-          **_Why couldn’t I reach you?_**

-          _We were kinda in Old Manhattan._

-          **_WHAT._**

-          _Enough with the bolted text, Falcon has been screaming enough for all of us. We are alright, although somewhat traumatized. Are you alright on your end? Are they suspicious?_

-          _I think._

-          _How big is the threat?_

-          _Well, Reed made a short list of things which were able to break through his network. I was on it._

Steve curses. – _Stay down._

-          _I will._

-          _I mean it, Iron Man._

-          **_Yes, mom_** _. I saw the footage by the way. You got help. Got a name on our hero?_

-          _No. But I think I know just where to look._  

\----

Steve is running and his back _hurts_. Darn Torch for shooting fireballs and darn the press for repeating the episode of the raid so many times. Even Steve is starting to feel bad, and he has planned the thing himself. It was just a raid! It wasn’t like they stole anything aside from the car (which Steve actually doesn’t know if has been found yet, apparently Wanda fried the GPS when she took out the surveillance) and the video of them screaming and panicking as they dive headfirst into the water is on the entire internet.

It’s ridiculous how the video starts: Pietro running around the lab, only flashing glints of him showing. Until the little shit curiously stops at the car, examines it with ominous caresses and them starts to fickle with the operation system until it lights up. He hoots and then mummers a low “Uh-oh” when the alarm blares. The video continues as he rescues his sister, Falcon and Steve on the roof and thankfully the help of their archer doesn’t show. The video continues right until they are screaming as they dive headfirst into the water which had earned a laugh or two, though Steve didn’t find it funny at all.

When he reaches the Cyber Circus, he has gone up in speed and he forces himself to slow down before anyone will notice. The air is warm and static as security cameras disguised as glowing, singing birds fly over them. The tent is iridescent, white and red, the air smells like sugar and popcorn. The Circus is filled with people, mostly kids, kept in tow by elder siblings and parents. The sky is dark and dull, the crowd is noisy and excited and even as Steve scans, he sees no performers amongst them. The sideshows and booths aren’t up until after the show, right now people are just making sure to get some food before buying their tickets.

“Tony!” Steve calls out in relief. Tony is looking nervously around, his sunglasses the same color as bitter cognac. No hood though, just a light blue button down which had probably looked smooth and clean before its owner’s personal space had been cynically violated. His hair is artfully mussed and there are no (!) motor oil stains on his jeans. He looks relieved up at Steve and waves and Steve…

Steve sees the flowers. The bouquet of pink common lilacs and green tulip leafs. He stops and looks down at them. They look crushed and have lost their gloss in the tight space, and Tony’s hand has been kludging the paper loose around the stalks.

And they’re perfect.

“You brought flowers,” Steve sighs more than says, feeling his face flush when something warm and fuzzy fills his chest. Tony is looking kind of sheepish, but then Steve is right in his space, looking down at the flowers with heat pooling in his lower half. His fingers slip down Tony’s wrist and his hand closes around Tony’s fingers and the stalks. He bites his lips and looks up Tony.

The brunet shortly gasps for air, before Steve has put his mouth on his. Tony is hot and stiff underneath him, and Steve drapes his other hand around Tony’s neck, pulling him in and opening his mouth. A hitched moan and Tony is finally responding, folding around Steve’s mouth. His tongue participates and for a long minute, they are kissing like they haven’t seen each other for years. Steve sinks and forces himself to pull away, even as Tony groans and follows his lips, before letting them press feather light kisses down Steve’s jar and down his neck.

“I should bring flowers more if I get this kind of reaction every time,” Steve can feel Tony smirk against his neck and it makes him blush even further.

“It’s really nice to see you, Tony,” Steve says, his voice coming out all low and hoarse. He kisses Tony’s cheek. One kiss turns into two and then he is kissing Tony hard on the mouth again. He forces himself to pull back, _there were kids here_ and this time Tony whines in protest. He inhales deeply (it doesn’t help). “We better get the tickets before the show starts.”

For a second Tony looks like he is about to object, but then he just kind of whines again. Steve smiles pleased at him, before he takes the flowers and Tony’s arm in his. A familiar smell of motor oil and the sound of rusty joints greet him when he enters the tent; he can hear the electronic animals in the back and the cooing sound of soothing, yielding voices, spray bottles emptied and quiet conversation. The hands on his arms tighten, but when he looks down, Tony is only looking curiously around.

“You’ve ever been in one of these?” Steve asks and puts his hand on the hand scanner. It takes a second before beeping and printing out a ticket.

“No,” Tony says, curiously looking at the hand scanner. “What do they use those for?”

“They say it’s in case of security checks and court persecutions,” Steve says and patiently waits for Tony to finish staring at the scanner, even as the person behind them in the line huffs. Nuisance to the public and they had been necking in front of kids two minutes ago: Gosh, they were already halfway to becoming one those nauseating, dramatic teenage couples. It shouldn’t make Steve so happy, but it does. Maybe because it is with Tony.

“What do you think then?” Tony answers.

“Well, I know it’s the only way the Circus gets permission to make camp in New York,” Steve says. “The NYPD comes in every morning to collect the guest list.”

“Doesn’t that bother you?” Tony asks and finally sighs as he puts his hand on. The screen glows blue and a ticket prints out.

“Not really,” Steve says. “Why would it?”

Tony doesn’t reply, just gives him a wary onceover. “Nothing. It’s alright.”

Steve senses it isn’t. He will have to make sure to remove Tony’s handprint from the system as well when he is done tracking their mystic archer.

Steve tilts his head and tries to listen through the noise. It’s a think his brain can do now, categorize all the noises and then put them on mute, so Steve can make out voices and conversations in loud environments. They get inside and Tony is starting to look increasingly harassed by the closed up space. Normally Steve doesn’t like using his size as an advantage towards the public, but he finds himself blocking a lot of pushes and prodding by other people, shielding the smaller guy. Tony grumbles as his face gets pushed into Steve’s arm and Steve can’t help but chuckle.

“You wait,” Tony mutters. “I’m having my growth spurt any day now.”

To that Steve just lifts a brow. Tony is the average height of a 17-year old, but skinny and not very broad-shouldered. He is about to tease Tony, when the keyword ‘archer’ catches his attention.

“… nobody is going to miss a fucking archer anyway…”

“… make it a sideshow or something…”

“… are you talking about, H.A.M.M.E.R. was here, you know we can’t keep him…”

“… been here since he was a kid. Can’t just drop him off…”

“… so hell yeah we can.”

“Steve, what are you doing, you’re holding up the line,” Tony says, pushing at him.

Steve shakes himself and sees that a woman with two children behind him is indeed looking impatiently at them, even shoving at Steve. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Sorry, I just zoned out I guess,” he replies and they find their seats.

Regular circus was banded years ago when the animals at display became too few and the animal cruelty in circuses too high. To compensate for the missing animals, far more beautiful and magnificent robot animals took the animals’ places. It’s not the same as the smell of real animals but the robots appear alive enough for it to not be awkward. The highlight of the evening is the human performers though; Steve knows that circus directors let their hidden superhumans shine especially out on the country side because the police control were far less thorough, but in big cities and in especially NY this very evening, the performers are visibly restraining themselves. It’s still enough to be entertaining and Tony is chuckling into his shoulders when the clowns make their – probably at this point routine - performance.

The tent is dark and the children are screaming in enthusiasm and it’s not the most appropriate and romantic place to have a first date, but somehow Tony still feels nice and close. The tent changes color from a night sky black into a dark bluish violet with a lilac hint when the Cyber Animals come out. The entertainers performing mostly in Asian-styled themes gets a honey yellow and glittery warm brown, the tent becomes a bright beige when an out-of-style comedy stand starts talking and the female acrobatics with an aesthetic focus gets a sky blue glittering in bright silvers. The tent in itself is a work of art and for a second Steve feels so complete and worriless and _warm_ because Tony is leaning up in that way which makes Steve want to hold and touch him.

At the end of the show, when the performers all come out and bow, Tony is bubbly and light hearted and he is giggling lowly when they get outside.

“You had fun?” Steve asks, eyeing the tent and unsurely looks back at Tony. Tony is looking around too, not just lingering, but outright observant. Maybe he is wondering about the tent’s color show too.

“Yeah,” he says. “I did. Despite, you know, all the snotty brats and parents glaring at us and people shoving.”

“It’s good for you,” Steve grins. “We can’t have you aristocrats thinking you’re better than anyone else.”

“Oh, is that so,” Tony says, taking a step into Steve space and Steve smiles back, pursing his lips in mock consideration and Tony leans up on his toes to plant a big kiss on them. It makes Steve giggle like an 11-year old and he bows down and lightly nipples at Tony’s neck, then inhales his scent. Tony feels small in his arms, his tanned hands suddenly kludging the back of Steve’s shoulders tightly. They stand like that and Tony is … shaking. Steve thinks it’s just the mood or the air, but the shaking continues. Now he is getting scared.

“Tony?” Steve asks.

Tony doesn’t answer him and Steve possessively clamps his hands down on Tony’s shoulders, pushing him deeper into his arms until they’re just embracing tightly. “I don’t want to leave,” Tony mutters against his skin and Steve feels like he is in quicksand, slowly sinking into a warm underworld of desire and fascination, care and not at least, love, mixing in with dark want.

Someone honks. Steve ignores it, until Happy Hogan’s voice is carried over the crowd. “Mr. Stark,” he shouts and for a second Tony’s fingers are digging into Steve’s side, so hard it hurts. Then he lets go of Steve and Steve forces himself to do the same. They pull back and there’s something serious in Tony’s eyes, worried anticipation, almost fear.

Steve puts a hand on Tony’s cheek and lightly kisses his lips.

He feels like Tony is running away and hiding at the same time. He tries to look into Tony’s eyes to see the truth, but Tony just turns his eyes away.

And he leaves.

\----

“Because this is all your fault! It’s your fault I’m losing my place in the fucking circus, just - get out. Get OUT, before I put a fucking arrow straight through your throat!”

Steve leaves a number.

\----

Steve’s biggest fear isn’t falling in battle. Steve’s biggest fear is falling in battle and regret things.

The nightmares about ice cold water don’t make it better.

It isn’t that he regrets his actions in the dream. He is just so sorry to go and he hates and is frustrated by all of the things he never got to say. He already misses the world, misses his team and school and fighting for what’s right and being one with the people. Most of all, missing Tony with him. He hates to see it all go and maybe that is just as bad as the regret.

Steve is fighting against geniuses. He fights against the world’s greatest minds. He isn’t wrong, but they are not either. He knows that if they remove Registration the Sentinels will have to go too; and the public has been admittedly safer since they came. Sure, there has been a genocide on the side but wasn’t that the whole human history? “One man’s misfortune is another man’s gain”.

He just wishes for a world better than that.

“What are you doing up?”

Steve blinks slowly. “Uh.” He looks up and sees Pietro standing there. “Just looking a paper over.”

Pietro looks unbelievably exhausted and not half as snarky and sneering as he usually is.

Worried, Steve rolls around the lollipop on his tongue and pulls out a chair. “I was about to put some tea over. Would you like some?”

To which Pietro simply grunts and snags away the chair to take a seat. Steve doesn’t comment, just gets up and fills up the kettle. He finds something calming, chamomile, even though Pietro’s metabolism will probably make it lose its effect. Steve likes feeding both Wanda and Pietro; their powers make them burn everything off so fast. Wanda could use days after a major battle, shaking like crazy on the sofa, huddled in a million duvets and blankets and consuming warm drinks. Frankly, it was terrifying to see and more than once it made Steve scared.

“Would you like for something to eat?” he offers, already opening up the fridge and scanning the inside. Fibers, sugar and protein seem to work the best for the mutants and Steve can’t help but smuggle some concentrated C-vitamins into the morning fruit smoothies he makes and which he KNOWS they are drinking off when they think he is not looking. A lot of money disappears this way, but he loves taking care of them. And they would never admit it, but they need it and they like when he does it.

“No,” Pietro snaps. “Why do you always do this?”

“Do what?” Steve asks. “Hey, I have peppermint. Would you like peppermint?”

“I don’t care!”

Steve hushes at him. “Quiet down, your sister just fell asleep,” he reprimands.

Pietro flushes, his lips becoming a thin line.

“Is this what it is about?” Steve lowly asks. “Your sister?”

He looks away.

“She will be alright,” Steve says, after a short silence. “She’s tough. What about you?”

“ _What about me?_ ”

Steve lifts his hands in surrender and makes two cups of tea. He puts them both on the table and pushes one at Pietro, opening up his history book again. He has eidetic memory and read the whole thing when he realized that with the Avengers he wouldn’t have time to study as much as he would like to. But he still occasionally leafs through it, just to remind himself about… he isn’t exactly sure. It’s a good distraction, really, because Tony has gone off somewhere. Steve has tried calling, but Happy Hogan picked up the phone and was pretty nice about asking Steve to fuck off.

Pietro gulps down half of the tea within a minute and Steve discreetly pushes his cup forwards.

“It was Ms. Marvel.”

Steve looks up, but doesn’t close the book. The twins have a habit of becoming nervous and run when he shows that they have his full attention.

“We were living with our family and Ms. Marvel, she attacked us. My sister has a scar and sometimes it burns and the nightmares begin.” The confession leaves the white-haired boy with a long sigh and he ruffles his hair, rubs his face. Steve considers him for a second, before he puts a hand on Pietro’s shoulder. When the boy doesn’t shake it off, he rubs it in circles.

“You are enough,” Steve tries to comfort the boy. “You’re more than enough.”

That makes Pietro shrug off his hand, but he takes Steve’s offered tea and gulps that down too.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a few lamps here and there, but they’re covered with spiders and moths. There are so far in between them that Steve’s eyes gets used to the darkness and his feet stops stumbling across the ground. When he has crossed the thirteenth lamp, the walls are appropriately vandalized and the air comfortably underground sultry. His sprint turns into a steady run and then into a jog. His ears are still ringing from the alarms and sirens and lasers, his leg hurts, but they can send a whole army now. He's home. And they will never catch him here.

Monday morning Steve’s technology class is cancelled because Professor Stark is sick. Steve tries not to worry and overthink and takes the time to write a rough draft of the next speech and taking notes of Napoleon’s old battle strategies from the history books in the library. But he can’t help recalling Tony’s anxiousness that night where they had parted.

He tries calling and is frustrated when this time a woman named Pepper Potts answers the phone.

He finishes the speech and goes to Technological History and learns about ancient Rome’s sewers and the Greek water pump system.

He calls again. It goes to voice mail.

He goes grocery shopping and returns home to cook dinner. While he cuts ginger and other roots to put in the noodle soup, he dramatically muses if this was what it was like being a clingy lover.

Wanda and Pietro returns home. Wanda is soaked wet though it isn’t raining and shouting Transian at her brother, who is following her like a wounded puppy. He doesn’t turn around when they slam the door open and half-heartedly listens to the drama, making sure it won’t go overboard though he is sure it won’t. He has some peppermint tea ready when Wanda comes out from her shower and Pietro soon joins them, again complaining about the cold water. Steve can see his point when the cold water makes Wanda’s shudders worse.

He brainstorms, filling up a sketchbook with information, ideas and possible plans instead of drawings. The raid on Baxter Building has always been a faraway dream for him, the most important thing to do. Now he has – or rather, Iron Man has - a lot of information none of them have any idea how to interpret which had actually been the next step in his plans. So he needs to set a new goal, another way of gathering information, getting the upper hand; at least until they can find a way to load the stolen data. He looks at his sketchpad and tries to think while his hand is making shapes without him wanting to, the curl of Tony’s mouth, his lifted eyebrow.

Tony looking up at him, anxious and hopeless and so obviously scared. _And Steve had let him go._

“Hello, who is this?” a young man growls when Steve calls Tony’s phone again.

“Uhm, I’m Tony’s…” he stutters, and doesn’t know how to introduce himself. Because who is he anyway to Tony? “I’m Steve. What happened to Tony?”

“Steve?” the man grumbles and then something seems to shift. “Steve!” he exclaims, a little more light-heartedly. “Sorry bro, I’m Rhodey.”

“Oh, Rhodey,” Steve sighs, a little relieved. “I’ve heard so much about you. You’ve been friends with Tony since MIT, right?”

“Yeah, I have. Listen, Steve, Tony’s still in surgery and probably won’t be awake before tomorrow.”

“What?” Cold drips down his spine. He starts to sweat. “What happened?”

“You don’t know?”

He is not ready for this. He can’t lose more people. “No… what?”

“Then maybe Tony should tell this to you himself.”

That isn’t good enough. “Just tell me if he is alright? He seemed down last time we spoke.”

“I don’t know, man. I will tell him that you called when he wakes up.”

Gradually losing color and warmth, Steve ends the call and sits down. He is scared and takes it out on the twins, does the thing where he makes too much food and forces them to eat all of it, because they’re too skinny and it makes him feel better. Wanda glares at him when he pushes a tub of hot water in front of her feet as she watches TV, but she indulges him and puts them inside. After that he nags Pietro about a haircut until the speedy snarker complies and lets him trim him. Steve always used to do this to Bucky and it helps. It’s a good distraction.

But there could only be so much the twins could take. When he comes around with a giant platter of cookies, he is promptly thrown into his bedroom. He looks back at them with a mean promise of vengeance as he retreats to take a shower. When he has taken a shower he paces the floor and rearranges his bookshelf, takes a look at some prototype recordings he never really got the hang of. He considers visiting Banner, but work is in two hours. Still, Bruce could probably use a nurse holding the patients when he removes the tracking chips. And that rash hasn’t disappeared yet, just gotten an ashy layer of scar tissue over it.

His phone starts ringing.

He all but throws himself across the room and grabs the thing. He frowns at the anonymous number. “Hello?”

“It’s Hawkeye. I’m gonna have to take you up on that offer.”

\----

There are a dozen of things that Steve credits himself for not doing. He hasn’t ever gone to the Rhino’s cage and thrown stuff at him. He hasn’t ever touched any of Banner’s experiments. He doesn’t piss off Maria Hill or comment on Fury’s bunny slippers. Point is that Steve isn’t the person who’s tempted by the big red button.

So. He has never actually been in Central Station.

It’s the oldest station building in NY and is a good gathering point of different lines, but no humans actually goes to change station there unless it is day and security is there. Security goes home in the evenings because that is usually when the mutates come out. The fight over Central Station had been long and hard as far as Steve knows, Central Station being a direct link between Old Manhattan and the surface world. It hadn’t been until a few years ago, a silent truce had been made between the two forces: humans get Central Station in the day and the mutates at night. Only crazy folk dares walking around in Central Station past the sun’s hour and sometimes, teenagers goes on a dare. They rarely come back in one piece. The fall and rise of Central Station has been in the news for years, so it’s not urban knowledge, at this point it is common fucking sense.

Which means that Steve is about to recruit the craziest member yet.

Beside the mutates, the reasons that no one wanders down to Central Station at night are varied. First off, Kingpin had made it his HQ when the truce secured the lack of the police’s involvement. See, the superheroes who had kept Kingpin’s control at bay had been Punisher, Daredevil and Black Widow. When 2/3 of that force was sent to jail, it became easier for Kingpin to uphold complete control. Sure, Black Widow is still out there, but whatever she has been doing about the Kingpin situation, it hasn’t stopped his territory from expanding – in fact, Steve is pretty sure that it is Spiderman who has something to do with the slow diminution of the Kingpin’s plans. The rest of the superheroes? They don’t fight things like the mob. Half of them don’t even qualify, simply because they don’t have the wit or tact to ruin this complicated level of crime. It’s takes intelligence and strategic, careful planning; it takes brain, not just brawn. No, the other superheroes’ time is reserved on Greater More Major Things like alien invasions, foreign infiltrations, plagues and zombie apocalypses.

Back in the day of The Flood, Central Station had been savaged by Dr. Strange since it at the time had been full of people. The old building had not disappeared in Old Manhattan and instead been placed right above the water.

Steve tugs down his hood and hunches his shoulders as the smell of dirty water and filthy scales start to reach his nose. Six years ago – Steve remembers the day in the orphanage – Namor had attacked New York as a final act of revenge. At the time Steve hadn’t know the details but a long talk with Banner gave him a pretty comprehensive view. Namor’s kingdom had suffered a major biochemical attack and it had left his kingdom in ruins. T’Challa hadn’t wanted to help him and the rest of the Illuminati didn’t see any reason to, since there hadn’t been much to savage.

Steve doesn’t even look at the first couple of mutated Atlanteans he crosses. These are the ones wearing human clothing. For comprehendible reasons they don’t wear shoes though, so their webbed toes and tough blue skin shows through. Steve digs his hands into his pockets and walks in the direction of the yellow line. The amount of mutated Atlanteans grow. The stench thickens as the atmosphere grows damper and smells of rot and old fish is added. Steve hides his face from the few humans he passes. He has a baseball bat in his bag. He hopes it will be enough.

The air becomes misty as Steve disappears further into the old building and deeper underground. Steve becomes slightly dizzy. His rash/scar is throbbing on his neck. Sounds come through less clear. He avoids the tunnels where the floor becomes wet, but when he turns for the third time and still can’t find a way around, he picks up his phone and calls. He closes his eyes and focuses through the sounds of water gurgling, wet coughing and broken water pipes.

Shortly, barely a moment, he hears a phone ring at the end of the tunnel before it is silenced.

With a sigh of resignation because that’s just so freaking typical, he walks directly into the wet tunnels, where far less Atlanteans are and far more people from the mafia are patrolling. He senses the difference when the scent of sickness and a rotten sea world is exchanged with blood and gunpowder. He has fought Sentinels and at times, even the police force but never a gang of people with weapons. It awakens something strange in him, instincts he never knew he owned. A mask, an attitude, takes over his person. It can almost be described as a deep calm, as if he is used to walking into an open battlefield.

“Hey!”

In a sudden burst of speed, he serves an uppercut. The man’s head snaps straight up and he blacks out.

Steve leaves the body and starts running. He picks up his phone and subtly he hears something vibrate. Something behind him. He stops and walks several steps back. When the looks up, there are gratings and he smells fresh air; direct links to the outer world.

“Hawkeye?” Steve calls and there is no response. He jumps up and grabs one of the gratings, forcing two others aside with his free hand. He crawls up into them.

The boy is leaning up towards the wall, blinking blearily at him. Steve has heard that the stench could do this to regular humans.

“You know who I am, Hawkeye?” Steve asks as he works a hoodie unto the archer’s body.

“Who else calls me Hawkeye outside the circus?” the boy slurs. “Not fair. Can’t see ya… can’t see ya face.”  

Steve takes the bandana off and pushes down the hood. “Better?” he asks with lifted eyebrows.

Hawkeye grunts and then starts to cackle. “I could be a spyyyyy…” he says.

Steve shakes his head. “Clinton Francis Barton, orphan who ran away with his brother to the circus. Your brother abandoned you a couple of years ago.”

“How the fuck do you know – “

Steve gags Clint when the volume of his voice rises. “I talked with the circus director. She will have your history at the circus deleted completely. Now come on.” He puts the bandana and hood on again, before he pulls Clint unto his back and climbs down from the room above the gratings. They stand and Steve gets Clint to straighten his back and pulls on the hood.

“Don’t talk with anyone, don’t look them in the eye,” Steve instructs as they finally begin their exit of Central Station. “Don’t stare at anybody. You have a place to be.”

“But I don’t.”

“You do now.”

\----

Clint is… Clint.

Steve takes him home and even though the twins have agreed to let him move in, they are both gone the first couple of days. Steve leaves the boy for work a couple of minutes after he has dumped him off, but when he comes back Clint has made himself home. Up against the wall on the bigger lockers he has made a little nest of pillows and a futon, where he can sleep out of sight and still crawl forwards and peak down at everything, like a bird in a tree.

The basement had seemed so big when Steve moved in, but now that the twins have taken over the lobby/living room (?) where the TV, the kitchen and most of the lockers are planted, it seems stuffed. In the corner two hammocks are hanging over some futons and blankets; on the wall they’ve taken the liberty of putting up a shelf, holding up their personal belongings; clothes, an old Gameboy, some hats, toothbrushes and thick books. There are two bathrooms, one beside Steve’s bedroom and one on the bottom floor, Steve has found himself using more since he got roommates. His bedroom is actually a scullery where the water and electricity meters are located and where most of the pipe system begins. It’s noisy and too hot, but Steve likes the way everything constantly clicks and shifts. When he had been alone – truly alone – he had listened to the water run and the steam hiss against the perimeter and his shudders had lessened.

Clint doesn’t like it when Steve tries to feed him (okay, the twins didn’t like it either, but sometimes they put up with it). To be truthful Clint doesn’t really like anything. He is defensive and wary and a cocky ass. He doesn’t like to be touched, doesn’t like people touching his stuff and yet oddly enough he likes touching other people – almost like an reassurance – though the touches quickly turn into shoves and pushes when he becomes aware of them. He is snarky and loud and unhygienic, yells at the TV and makes inappropriate jokes. Besides that, he isn’t an ungrateful roommate. He is primitively raised, respects other people’s space (as long as they respect his, as Pietro finds out) and considers the running water and roof above his head, a luxury. None of the other things are really a problem to Steve. He’s an orphan too. He gets it.

It’s when Hawkeye and Captain America work together that there is a problem.

Steve is used to being followed on the field. He knows it’s not because everything he does is so true and the right thing always; it’s because the operations are too risky for the operators to act out. Any issues on the mission will be discussed afterwards. Out of danger. In a controlled environment. With _time_.

But Hawkeye is unpredictable and at times even completely non-caring towards the plan. It causes damage. A lot of it.

“Your instincts are well-oriented and you have a good head,” Steve is yelling, careful to do it while sitting down so Clint doesn’t feel threatened by Steve’s looming. “But what if I didn’t react in time? I trust you to have my back, Hawkeye. You’re going to work with a team and we need to be in sync or things will spin out of control!”

“It needed to be done!” Hawkeye is shouting back, but Steve is aware that Clint knows he screwed up and was just fighting out of instinct.

“Screw that!” Steve yells. “Screw the job. It’s fixable. Losing _you_ is not.”

On the fifth day the twins return and they do so with money. Steve doesn’t ask, trusts their word about earning them honestly and he leaves the house to strategically pile up the food stocks while Clint and the twins get acquainted. He takes his sweet time; the more you buy, the more you save and he buys _a lot_. He can do that now as he is no longer eating alone.

When he gets back, the grill has obviously been on the floor, leaving a huge dent, and Pietro and Clint are cleaning up the mess while Wanda is replugging it. He doesn’t ask, just starts carrying the gratings towards the sinks. They needed cleaning anyway.

Friday it is time for the technology course but once again Professor Stark has called in sick.

Saturday Clint annoys Wanda so much that she breaks the TV. Afterwards she is surprisingly close at choking him to death; ‘surprisingly’ not because she doesn’t have it in her, but because there’s a reason a charming fella like Clint has been around for so long without permanent injuries. The guy has the survival skills of a cockroach.

Sunday Steve has decided that he needs to claw Tony’s eyes out. It only seems fair. He is glaring holes into his phone and he is so sick of checking it every freaking minute and not seeing a message. It doesn’t help that he has tried reaching out towards Iron Man several times and the only reply he got in return was a sharp **_Wait_**.

With no Tony, he is either at school, home or work. He turns in his papers. He meets up with Fury in New Jersey; apparently the government has allowed an international expansion and as a result 450.000 foreign students and workers are shipping in through the next month. Steve knows it is to get USA to integrate with the world again and though he is pleased, since this would allow the Americans to become much more informed and opinion involved, he can’t help but worry what the government really wants with this.

\----

One evening while Steve is going over source material about French freedom fighters, Spiderman calls.

It’s rare. The Avengers are more like a resistant group, while Spiderman is an up-and-coming superhero. When he sniffs up information he thinks Steve might value, he hits him up but the rest of the time he is busy with the villains the police have problems catching.

“What’s up?” Steve asks.

“Dude, where are you at?” Spiderman replies by asking. “I need you in New Manhattan.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve got a jumper.”

Oh. Steve has always known, but it never fails to surprise him what Spiderman does every day. It’s yet another job of Spiderman’s that few people know about and which the Daily Buggle never mentions. “What is it about?” Steve can’t help but suspiciously ask. This wouldn’t be the first or last trap set up for him.

“He’s Registered.”

Steve drops his pen and forgets about risk. Could it be Tony? “I’m on my way.”

When Steve arrives the Registered person is still on the roof, Spiderman frantically ranting and rambling at him. Steve shrugs off the camouflage blanket with slowed down movements as he surveys the situation. The figure is dressed in something which must be a white hospital gown with a long cardigan on top. He is sitting on the edge, dangling his feet, but not making any threatening movements. The building he is on is completely shut down and so are the surrounding skyscrapers. That explains why no one has gotten onto the roof except Spiderman; most locks are controlled with a computer these days and if electricity is down, you wouldn’t be able to get through.

Spiderman sights him and wastes no time to swing over. The superhuman is very small and agile and clearly just a kid. Steve doesn’t want to intrude on the mission the boy has seemed to have given himself (because Joseph knows that with how things are going? They need it), but he would be lying if he said he isn’t worried and concerned. To make things better Steve does his best to hold his hand over the kid, give him some immunity and recognition. It isn’t a lot, but Captain America’s word has begun to mean something and Steve isn’t hesitant on using that.

“So?” he prompts and hands over a protein bar. Spiderman takes it gratefully and starts eating it after having tugged up his mask a bit. The kid had probably been swinging around all day and Steve is sure that Spiderman must have enhanced metabolism.

“He’s just gotten out of brain surgery,” the kid tells him, crumbs gathering around his mouth. Steve resists the urge to wipe it with his sleeve and narrows his eyes at the roof top. It’s far up and everything’s dark, but Steve knows. He breathes out slowly. It’s Tony. Tony wants to jump off a building. Tony had run away from the hospital. Tony had brain surgery.

“Can you give me a ride to the rooftop?” he asks after having breathed in slowly.

“Sure.” Spiderman climbs up onto the roof where he throws down a spider thread as thick as rope. Steve takes a deep breath and then jumps forward, grabbing the robe. He only takes a second to look down – about 43 floors – before he starts to climb the rope, Spiderman helping him by pulling the rope up. When he has finally pulled himself up over the edge, Spiderman is gone and all Steve can see is Tony’s back in that hospital gown.

“Hello,” Steve hesitantly greets and walks over to the railing, a good five steps away from the boy.

Tony’s eyes are red and clouded as they glare at the skyline and the bandage around his head has become brown with dirt. He is smoking, his hands are shaking.

“You must me Tony Stark,” Steve softly continues. “Been a rough week?”

Tony looks at the side to him. “I was never and am not going to jump. Everybody is exaggerating.”

“Well,” Steve says and pointedly eyes the door, completely bolted, the electronic locks down. “You must admit you’ve got everyone worried.”

“They should have thought about that before,” Tony shouts and then flinches as if the sound is too high for him. With a low groan he claws at the bandages.

“What did they do?” Steve asks softly.

“They’ve put neurochips in my brain,” Tony says. “To monitor and control my brain patterns.”

Steve is taken aback. “Your father let them do that?”

“It was just a matter of time before he’d lose the battle. Are you happy? That there’s equal treatment now?”

“That’s stupid. I would never want unnecessary suffering in the name of unity.”

“Always so sincere, Cap.”

Steve nears the boy a bit. “You’ve done this? Taken electricity down in all of these buildings?”

When Tony doesn’t reply, Steve continues: “It’s just a matter of time before they either send someone who can fly or a jet.”

“It was taking down these buildings or the hospital I was in.”

“I see. That’s really good today, Tony. Is it okay if I call you that?”

“Sure.”

“Do you usually smoke, Tony?”

“No. I think I’m allowed right now.”

“You are. Though I can’t imagine what your lover would say.” When Tony scoffs at him, Steve can’t help but grin: “Of course a handsome boy like you would have someone.”

“I should break up with him. It won’t be the same with the chips in. Now people can _see_ I’m Registered. That I’m different. Not one of them.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. He is sorry that he ever made Tony doubt him but most of all he hates Registration and he hates what it has made Tony think. Carefully, he says: “I think it’s his choice. Have you called him since you went through surgery?”

“No?”

“Does he know?”

“No.”

“I think he would like to know.”

“You think he’d come?”

“I don’t know him. Do you think he will?”

“He’s got a representation tomorrow. About the French resistance. I want to go watch it.”

“Then do so.”

“You think they’d let me?”

Steve is silent for a bit. “So the things in your head control your brain?”

“Yeah. They can knock me out, make me pee myself, take away my senses, put me in a permanent coma or even kill me entirely. I just have to trust that they won’t, even when I get difficult.”

“That sounds wrong,” Steve notices. “Who made the chips?”

“Reed. H.A.M.M.E.R. My dad.”

Steve swallows down the bile in this throat and snatches away Tony’s cigarette. The boy grumbles but doesn’t say anything when Steve puts it out. “Your father is probably panicking about where you are right now. And you made Spiderman shit his pants.”

“I’m sorry you had to come.”

“Are you kidding me? You can’t tell that I was scared as Hell that I might have missed Spiderman’s phone call. I wish I could do more than this.” He considers. “I can. If you’re interested.”

“I need to solve this for myself. But thanks for the offer, Cap.” With these words, Tony pulls up a phone and fiddles with it. At once the building lights up again and the electronic locks are activated with a beep. Steve gets up and eyes the nearest building as he pulls up the camouflage blanket.

“And Tony? Call your boyfriend. It’s time you have a talk. Give your reasons.”

\----

“This is getting worrisome.”

Howard Stark looks up. His eyes are non-caring and non-seeing. Tony came in an hour ago and is back on sedatives and has had his bandages changed. The visible neurochips on the back of his ears had been a grim reminder in the brief time they had been uncovered. They don’t stall his brain function or limit his thinking; but the side effects are serious. At this rate Tony would be living his life like he had a disability.

So no, Howard Stark has a hard time looking at Reed Richards, the inventor and surgeon of the brain implants, right now. “How so?” Howard says, clearing his throat. “My son tried to jump of a building and some stupid masked teenagers talked him down?”

Reed pauses and looks at Howard. “It had to be done. I couldn’t stop it, Howard.”

“Since when did you become a tool?” Howard asks bitterly. “You used to have a say in these things.”

“It’s for the best.”

“You wouldn’t let your own son be treated that way.” Howard gets up.

“He will be living a normal life,” Reed calls but Howard is already walking out.

\----  

Tony doesn’t call.

\----

The last boarding foreigners come on a Saturday and New Manhattan has been cleared into a welcoming parade. Steve is worried that the Americans will just glare at the foreigners, but curiosity wins over prejudice and soon French, English, Chinese, South-African and Russian classes walk around in their uniforms, speaking languages Americans has only heard through movies and the internet. All sorts of flags are scattered all over the streets and a few planes are even flying around with banners.

Steve sees the Fantastic Four standing stoic on a balcony, wearing the uniform; on another one stands Howard Stark, some blonde and Bruce. They’re all a part of the exhibit, since the last glance the world got of them was of superheroes. The Sentinels had frightened people at first, their amount doubled because of terrorist threats, but after one flew over the crowd with an amazing light show and threw confetti and balloons down, people had relaxed a bit.

Steve is walking with Clint and the twins are around on their own somewhere. Falcon is walking alone for the sake of his identity; Clint and he still haven’t met and Steve broods for the day it will happen. Their presence is meant as a patrol, even as they’re just as excited about the newcomers as everyone else are. Steve’s slightly sad that he couldn’t enjoy the parade with Tony, but tells himself that he has gotten used to the ache (he hasn’t. But he has stopped calling).

Steve’s having fun and has even coaxed Clint to eat with him, when all Hell breaks loose.

From colorful rainbows the Sentinels emits an ominous red and they all start turn towards a balcony. The Fantastic Four balcony. They start to shoot.

“Wanda!” Steve calls over the com as the crowd panics and starts to run away from the centerpoint, of course very unsuccessfully. Invisible Woman has put up a shield which deflects most of the attacks. In return the Sentinels try to completely ruin the building to detach the balcony. Whatever their target is, it’s still on the balcony.

The twins meet them at the fountain and they push into an ally, letting Wanda’s red magic swim over them and hide them from prying eyes, as they put on their masks and reveals their costumes. Steve puts on the helmet, the hood and the bandana and when he turns Pietro has put on his white goblin mask, Wanda has veiled herself in red magic, and Clint has his bow at the ready, purple mask in place. He fires and the EMP arrows Steve has invested in shows to pay out when the Sentinels crashes unto a roof right away. Clint doesn’t boast as he usually would, just sticks close. And this point there are no people close to the attack and Steve can stop worrying about casualties.

Johnny Storm tries to destroy the Sentinels but ends being more like a distraction, gravity is working against Ben though he does a good job with the Sentinels he can get his hands on but the robots are so heavily built that Invisible Woman’s attacks are almost fruitless. Where the Hell has Mr. Fantastic gone?

“Okay, turn on your coms, people,” Steve orders and Falcon hums before coming into view. “Quicksilver, work with the Torch to lead the Sentinels around the buildings. Scarlet Witch, I want you wait there with a death trap. Hawkeye, I need you on the ground and a good distance away to be at Invisible Woman’s aid and out of her reach; you’re gonna be my eyes for field surveillance. Falcon, I need a ride up to the tower, afterwards you make sure to chase down any strays and keep Torch in the air. I’m going to see what’s going on with Mr. Fantastic. Everybody be aware, a turning point can be made. Us helping them won’t stop them from trying to catch us.”

“Aw man, you weight a ton,” Falcon complains as he lands in front of Steve. He nods at Hawkeye and Hawkeye cautiously nods back.

Steve eyes the two of them, before reaching out and reclipping Falcon’s mask so it won’t fall off by accident.

“Thank you, mother,” Sam rolls his eyes and Steve puts his arms around his neck, making kissing sounds at his ear to which Sam squeaks.

Steve is worried about the nearness of the other superheroes, but Sentinels are something he knows. The winged Avengers drops him off on a rooftop and Steve’s feet are running before he hits the ground, zig sagging to avoid the lasers quickly thrown his way. When he is close enough he spins and freezes in the Sentinels blind spot, before he once again jumps. The iron plate beneath his gloves and he fumbles at the side of its ribcage and takes out its distance measurement sensor – making the machine completely nearsighted. It grabs at him and he climbs unto its shoulders where he twists the neck all the way around. It’s been a while since he has done this, but the moves come just as easy as buttering bread.

The purple inner plates become grey and Steve flips up the glass face disk and punches through one eye, ruining its neuron brain center.

“Getting sloppy, are we, Cap?” Falcon grins, having already taken down five.

“I’m still sleepy from how slow your ride went,” Steve answers as he lands and rolls. For a second he stumbles, breaking tiles loose before he regains balance and clears himself a path down to the balcony where he can see the fallen hero lie.

Invisible Woman and Hawkeye is taking down a squad of Sentinels, and when Steve puts his hand on the man and turns him, he realizes that the superhero is completely frozen solid though the blue eyes are following the movement of his hands. The balcony shakes underneath him and Steve is startled by the sound of a slow whimper. He looks up.

In the corner, in the shelter of an unfolded parasol, is a small blond boy.

“Cap, I lost one,” Falcon informs into the com and Steve throws Mr. Fantastic’s body inside the building, before he roughly picks up the boy. Before he can take aim and throw the boy too, the floor is crumbling underneath his feet and he uses his strength to jump unto another balcony. The boy slips out of his grasp and rolls.

“Franklin!” Sue Storm is screaming, seeing the same thing that Steve does, a Sentinel shoots, _he is not going to make it –_

Pain pierces through the back of his thigh as he clutches the boy into his body, rolling over the concrete floor. His legs shake as he gets unto his feet, blood flowing down his leg and into his shoe. He runs into the apartment, the wall taking the shower of laser raining down on him. In the safety of heavy walls, he zips up his jacket and unlocks the belts around his chest, he usually only reserves to stolen technology. The boy is hyperventilating and Steve rubs his back, while sealing him into place and zipping up the jacket on top of him.

“Avengers, the boy is the target,” he grunts. “I’m going to bring him to safety. The Sentinels should lose interest in battle once their target is gone. Keep them occupied until then.” After all his ability to take down Sentinels is nothing against their superpowers and he knows New York better. Falcon would be too easy an aim on the sky since the Sentinels were travelling through air too, the kid too scared to be still and the fall too risky. Pietro takes too many risks - handling bystanders and civilians had simply never been his suit, and just like his sister, he doesn’t know his way around New York. And Steve can’t afford letting either of them go, the deathtrap they’ve so elegantly set up is what has taken most Sentinels down so far. Still, he feels bad leaving them behind. “When I’m out of sight, you need to all get away as fast as quickly. Falcon, Johnny will be on your tail, so try to get away on foot once you’ve reached Harlem. Be careful not to get burnt. It hurts like shit.”

Steve straightens, but Franklin is gripping him too tightly, breathing quickly into Steve’s sleeve.

“It’s gonna be fine,” Steve reassures and puts his arms around him as he rushes through the building towards the back door. “Hawkeye, cover my back, I’m going out in two minutes ten o clock from your position. How old are you, Franklin?”

Franklin doesn’t reply right away, just locks his ankles around Steve’s loin and tucks his face into Steve’s neck. He is shaking so badly. Still, he is taking it very well. His parents must have taught him what to do in this situation.

“Slowly, in and out,” Steve instructs.

“I’m nine,” Franklin whimpers. “Where is my mommy?”

“She’s a little bit busy now, but I promise, when everything’s safe, you’re going to see her again. Now, we’re going to jump. It’s gonna be a bit scary, but I have you, okay?” Steve talks. Franklin nods. “Hawkeye, now!”

He jumps and lands on the roof across Invisible Woman. “I’m going to take your son to safety,” are his only words before he jumps over the edge and lands on his feet in the street. He hears the shots as he zig zags and even feels the heat of the lasers, but Hawkeye covers him nicely and soon the fighting becomes background noise. Only his and Franklin’s frantic breaths can be heard in the abandoned streets. Three blocks away, he makes a turn for the train station with the shortest path to the train tracks. As he had thought, it turns out that the subway stations are where most of the New Yorkers are hiding. People are shouting and pointing and taking pictures as he shoves his way through, the police threaten to shoot but he has disappeared into the darkness before he hears the bullets.

“I’m scared,” Franklin whines. “It’s dark.”

“Not gonna be long,” he grunts. There are a few lamps here and there, but they’re covered with spiders and moths. There are so far in between them that Steve’s eyes gets used to the darkness and his feet stops stumbling across the ground. When he has crossed the thirteenth lamp, the walls are appropriately vandalized and the air comfortably underground sultry. His sprint turns into a steady run and then into a jog. His ears are still ringing from the alarms and sirens and lasers, his leg hurts, but they can send a whole army now. He's home. And they will never catch him here.

“Dad says it’s because my brain thinks dangerous animals are outside,” Franklin hesitantly informs. “That’s why I’m afraid of the dark.”

“Well, your father is right,” Steve complies as he slides down the wall, breathing out. “But the subway is different. Has your father ever been in the subway?”

“No… we have a Jet.” Franklin peaks his head up and looks around. The darkness doesn’t scare him anymore, even if the sounds tell him that they’re not alone.

“Handy.”

“You go to the subway?” Franklin asks.

“Yeah,” he admits. “It’s easy and nice. And though it’s dark and underground, it’s filled with people.”

“People are dangerous.”

Steve lifts his brows. The kid shouldn’t speak about other people in that sort of vary voice. At least not while being this young. “Well, some are.”

“Aren’t you scared down here?”

“No. But other stuff scares me.”

“Like… spiders?”

“Yeah, some spiders scare me.” Like Black Widow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm looking for a beta (help). And as always, let me know what you think. Your comments really do help during the writing process. I'm sorry for the random use of the metric system. Let's just say that in this world, Americans has adopted it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve exhales. He hadn’t known he'd been holding his breath, yet he had. A heavy weight he hadn’t noticed on his shoulders disappeared. Iron Man was alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the wonderful [Renae ](http://agentshnucumbs.tumblr.com/)for betaing this fic! She's been such a great help! Note that I've changed Franklin's age.

The next couple of hours are almost a haze. The rocking motion of Steve running through the dark tunnels puts Franklin to sleep for some time and that gives Steve some silence to settle and plan. The Avengers gradually report in; Clint had been grunting a lot, which meant he had probably been jumping off buildings again, but Wanda and Pietro had made a hasty retreat through the empty streets. Falcon had scorched his left wing when he had taken off and the Torch had needed to give him a proper farewell. The majority of the Sentinels had been at the parade and so the loose cover of patrols all over the city had thinned considerably after the twin deathtrap. Sometimes he canalmost hear their flying engines, sense their scanners trying to locate them, even if they are very much underground.

After some time, when Steve has moved a safe distance away from the parade, he slows down to a jog. He stops in front of a staff emergency exit. The persistent green light slowly wakes Franklin up. “Are we home?” he asks.

“Sorry, not yet,” he replies, trying to sound soothing. He clips the straps open and puts Franklin down in front of him. “Listen, I’m just gonna pat you down to make sure you’re alright and you don’t have some misfortunate technology on you, alright? It might lead the Sentinels to us.” ‘Or your parents.’ “Is that alright?”

Reluctantly Franklin nods and Steve kneels in front of him. The first thing he finds is a phone, which he turns off and removes a tracking chip from. On the boy’s thin arm is a high-tech bracelet he shuts down as well. There’s no tracking chip in it, and that only makes Steve suspicious. Frank wraps his arms around himself. He is wearing a T-shirt and some shorts, appropriate clothes for the weather if it wasn’t for the fact that they weren’t in contact with the sun anymore. Steve clips open the straps and Franklin immediately walks towards him and lets himself be buckled into place.

“Why were they after me?” Franklin asks, looking up at Steve.

“What do you think, Franks?” Steve asks which makes Franklin smile. “Frankenstein. Franky-Swaggy.”

“That’s stupid,” he giggles.

“It makes you smile. Maybe it’s not that dumb.” Steve smiles back and swats at the boy’s hair. “So tell me, how’s school?”

Franklin wrinkles his nose as if he doesn’t like the subject change. Or maybe it’s just a question he has been asked too many times before. Probably the latter. “Fine, I guess,” he replies. “It’s weird. Boring.”

Sounds like Tony. “Are you showing the teacher how to do his job yet?”

They talk as Steve starts walking and as he nears the surface he gets a better connection. It’d be really great to have Iron Man right now to tell Steve what is going on on the other side, maybe map out the current routes of the remaining Sentinels, because he can’t bring Franklin back to New Manhattan if the Sentinels are targeting him. And Steve knows what that means; they have detected an X-gene on omega-level and had responded to him as an immediate threat. Franklin is debuting and at a horribly young age. It isn’t unheard of; Steve knows that Wanda started out early and she had told him that among mutants it had been common knowledge that Professor X, Beast and Magneto had gotten their powers at a young age.  

“It’s strange,” Franklin says. “I feel like we can’t be a normal family sometimes. I want to be like people on the TV; like in the movies.”

Steve doesn’t know what to say. At just nine, Franklin sounds much older and smarter than his age. “All families have problems.”

“Does yours have too?”

Steve needs to be careful; whether Franklin likes it or not, everything Steve is saying to him will be passed on. “Yeah it…” he says. He’s not sure. He can’t remember a lot. “It used to.”

Eventually the darkness gives way to the light of sunset. When Franklin sighs happily, Steve starts to jog again and then they’re on Brooklyn Bridge. Steve can’t stick to the tracks since the metros here are active, so he climbs over the railing and takes the pedestrian path. Franklin gasps and points at the beautiful view – from where they are standing, the majority of the East River is visible, colored in golden and orange like a wholesome piece of glass. A bit further and Manhattan sprawls, followed by the dam, New Manhattan sitting among the misty clouds, looking like some celestial Metropolis.

Franklin points at it. “Are we that far away from where I live?”

“Yeah,” Steve replies. Beneath the pedestrian path, cars are driving by perhaps a little more hectic than usual. Steve can’t see any Sentinels and starts walking. It isn’t long before a pickup truck slows down and stops, disrupting the whole traffic, and an old man with dialect so Brooklyn that he must be from the heart of it, says they can jump in. Steve wraps his arms around the boy and jumps down, the old man continuing on his way as if nothing had happened.

“Do you know him?” Franklin whispers. He looks a little flushed and Steve remembers his body heat and the rise in temperature. He unzips the jacket and unbuckles the belts. Franklin takes a stumbling step and then promptly falls unto his ass when the pickup truck hits a bump.

“Nope,” Steve says.

Franklin frowns. “Do you usually just go with strangers?”

Steve shrugs. “Well, at worst, he's from H.A.M.M.E.R.” He doesn’t think so though. Folks from Brooklyn have always had issues with the government and Steve suspects the old man is helping him just to spite it. Turns out that the man has a grandson who’s a big fan of Captain America (What the _Hell_?) and Steve writes a note and gives a signature (he fakes his handwriting, not trusting the old man) and promises to swing by their shop sometime. The man drops them off near his apartment which, as Steve had expected, is located at the heart of Brooklyn and he gradually relaxes as he walks beside Franklin. This is his neighborhood. He understands every one of its scents and sounds and people.

“Why doesn’t anyone call the police?” Frank asks as he looks around. People stare at him and at Cap. Steve buys him candy floss and tries to think of a good answer.  

“Most of them don’t care what I’m doing,” he settles.

“Dad says it’s important you get into custody. You’re making people scared.”

“If I’m really making people scared, why are they not calling the police?” Steve asks. “The costume makes me pretty obvious.”

“You’re controlling them.”

Steve laughs. “Did your father tell you that?”

“No. But why would they not call the police then?”

“You tell me.”

Franklin is silent for a long time and Steve watches his attempts at eating candy floss without getting it all over his face with amusement. “They’re your friends?” he asks then. Steve hands him a bottle of water.

The boy drinks and reaches back the bottle. “I’m certainly not their enemy,” Steve replies.

Frank hesitates and tries to wipe his face with a napkin. It only results in the tissue getting stuck in the sugar. Steve wets a napkin and starts wiping his face. Frank’s tummy growls and he is dirty and ashy. “I… I don’t have a lot of friends,” Frank admits. “I’ve never gone to public school. But I don’t think that I’d fit in anyway. The children my age are all dumb.”

“I don’t think they’re that far behind. Maybe you’re just ahead. Let’s grab for something to eat, yeah?”

\----

The Metro Café (no longer in front of the metro) is only half-full when Steve opens up the door. The customers are mostly old regulars and don’t pay attention as Steve makes way through the floor. He waves at the rookie at the bar with the hand that isn’t holding Franklin’s and lets himself into the back. “Jose?” he calls. “Jose!”

The half-deaf chef, roasting chicken on a pan, looks up and grins at him, his single tooth visible in between his lips. “Captain!” he breaks out and puts the pan on the stainless steel table. “Been a long time since you came begging off food from Jose, eh? Found a better?”

“Aw Jose, you know there’s only you,” Steve laughs, hugging the chef. “I came with a small fella though. This is Franklin.”

“Aaaah,” Jose gapes at the boy, his eyes unblinking and glinting in a sharp way not many people knew they could. “I saw the news, yes. You kidnapped their kid finally? How much is ransom?”

Steve shoves him. “We’re hungry and it’s your job to feed hungry runaways, remember? Do you have any of garlic breads left?”

“No,” Jose shrugs unapologetically. “I have some tomato soup and pasta left.”

“That will do,” Steve replies, already opening the microwave. Franklin yelps indignantly as Jose unceremoniously grabs him and starts to wipe his face and arms down. Steve puts some of Jose’s soup in the microwave and places pasta on two plates. As the soup heats, he starts doing the dishes.

“Are you sure that's hygienic?” Franklin asks, eyeing the microwave. Its inside is dirty with the leftovers of previous meals scattered all over.

“You won’t get sick, if that is what you mean,” Steve narrowly avoids. He wipes his hands. “Jose, you don’t happen to have any fruit? Vegetables. Those carrots? Jose. JOSE.”

“WHAT?” Jose shouts in return.

“VEGETABLES.”

“There, there,” the man points vaguely and Steve ends up finding the carrots among the wine. He glares at Jose who had returned to his job of frying chicken before turning to Franklin who is looking curiously around.

“Hands off the knives, Frank,” Steve reprimands and starts peeling the skin of the carrots. The microwave finishes heating the soup by the time Franklin has already consumed three carrots. He places the plates of food on the table and forces the thin man to join Franklin at the table. Steve takes a seat among the boxes of cans and pots and munches in the carrots. His stomach is finally announcing itself after five hours of harsh activity. Carrots aren’t enough, but it’s the only thing the man can spare and Steve can’t bring himself to eat off Jose’s food. The man has given enough already.

“It tastes funny,” Frank whines.

“It's canned soup mixed with real tomato,” Jose proudly announces. “Full of sugar and conservatives but still fresh.”

“It will give you energy until you get home,” Steve promises. “Eat it with bread, the bread is good. Like this.”

Steve gives an example of soaking up the soup with the bread, and Frank follows his example. Despite his complaints the bowl empties very quickly and Steve makes him another one, while Frank tries not to choke on the pasta.

“How is business going?” Steve asks.

“Bad!” Jose exclaims, just as he had done the first time Steve had asked, and yet somehow the place was still standing. “Always children come ask for my food! And I say! Sure. Sure you have my food. Poor starving child, Maria loves you. And then boy with big tummy comes and asks for food! Now, everyone mutant comes eat my food!”

“They probably don’t have many others to go to,” Steve says warmly.

“I’m gonna tell Dad that you feed Unregistered mutants,” Franklin speaks up.

Steve doesn’t even have time to break in.

“Eh, gonna report yourself too?” Jose shouts. “Never I hear Fantastic’s son is mutant, yet here you are! Stupid child, I’m gonna give you a slapping!”

“Jose,” Steve sternly interrupts. “No slappings. Franklin didn’t mean it, right?”

But Franklin has started crying, startled by the old man’s yelling. It only makes the man huff and leave the kitchen. Steve sighs as he hears the man grumble: “Get out. I don’t want no ungrateful children at my café, disrespecting Jose.”

“He would never hit you,” Steve gently assures, when the man is out of sight.

“I don’t know what I did,” Franklin whimpers. “What he does is illegal, right?”

“Illegal doesn’t always mean wrong,” Steve replies and picks the boy up onto his lap.

“I hate this, I wanna go home,” the boy cries, clinging to Steve. He is starting to emit a glow and objects around the kitchen decide to take off. They’re not throwing themselves around violently (yet) so Steve doesn’t act, though he does worry. On internet forums, pro-Registration arguers often pull up newspapers and articles about superhuman attacks to argue their case, even though most of the superhumans featured aren’t attacking; quite often the case is that of a teenage mutant debuting and Franklin is at omega-level. The possibility is far likely that his debut could be explosive. Steve needs to calm him down or have Jose call some mutants from the underground.    

He hesitates. “Your home isn’t safe right now. Not even here.” 'Smart Rogers, real fucking smart, taking away his home too, why don’t cha?'. Darn his honesty.

“Why?” Tomato soup is floating around the room while fields of energy are covering the windows. Outside the kitchen the café is turning silent and Steve doesn’t know if it’s because the customers have sensed the situation and are considering escaping or if it’s Franklin’s powers.

“You just said to Jose that you would have thrown him in jail for helping you. Jose has three sons and a wife. Don’t you think they’d be sad if he was in jail?”

“It’s because I’m…” Franklin stutters. He can’t say the word.

Steve gently coaxes the boy until he looks up at him and into his eyes. “It’s not everything you are.”

Everything clatters to the floor and the tomato soup falls everywhere. Franklin yelps as they are both covered in tomato soup along with the rest of the kitchen. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, you’ll learn,” Steve hurries to say and that seems to calm Franklin down a bit. He will learn. It will become normal. “But I think we need to clean up all of this. Be a bit mean to Jose leaving it like this, right?”

“Yeah,” Franklin says. “Can I… can I say sorry to him?”

“Of course.”

Steve slips some money into Jose’s college savings and starts wiping soup off surfaces and the kitchen equipment back in place, while Franklin washes up their plates. Afterwards he sticks his head out of the kitchen to call Jose back in. Jose looks calmer, has clearly gotten a cigarette in or two. Some of the customers have left, but he doesn’t seem upset about it. Steve calls him in.

Franklin looks helplessly at him, but Steve just crosses his arms and tries to gesture expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” the boy says. “I don’t want you in jail.”

The mutant jumps as Jose’s thunderous face clears up and he exclaims a happy boom. The apology earns Frank a big raspberry lollipop in his mouth which he eagerly sucks on all the way back to the tunnel.

The second time in the darkness is easier; they’re not running and Steve has made sure that he is close enough to the surface that he can call his people. Franklin has calmed down from his minor “episode” at the restaurant and becomes braver as he starts to explore in the darkness. Steve sits down in a corner and prepares himself for a long wait. He closes his eyes, tired, and only opens them up again when Franklin woops. His right palm is glowing and he uses this to better examine the tunnel. Steve closes his eyes again and calls Wanda and as they speak, two Sentinels pass by (someone had probably reported seeing them on the bridge) and Frank breaks three already worn down lamps with his new abilities. In the evening the vampires are starting to wake up and they need to leave the tunnel before midnight if they’re hoping to survive. Steve’s just not sure if they'll survive a Sentinel attack. But then Pietro calls in and says that the whole area around Baxter Building has been cleared from Sentinels.

Steve doesn’t know what to do about delivering Frank back. The wipes have probably worn down by now, and his uniform is soaked in sweat, blood and dead skin from his wound. All the Fantastic Four needed at this point was a lucky swipe across his clothes and they would've had his DNA, his entire identity. But he couldn’t just leave Franklin in front of the building. Or could he? No if they thought this was a kidnapping, there would probably be a huge trap waiting. Maybe bypass them? But it had been so difficult breaking in the first time, and now it would probably be impossible. Maybe he should go for bold and brave? Call the other Avengers and immobilize the whole scene. But the Avengers were tired and more than likely to mess up.

His phone beeps. – _Cap?_

Steve exhales. He hadn’t known he'd been holding his breath, yet he had. A heavy weight he hadn’t noticed on his shoulders disappeared. Iron Man was alright.

-          _Iron Man. Are you better?_

-          _I’m on top and online._

-          _Good. Thank god you came at this point, I really need your input with this. Remember when you said you could do more from the inside?_

-          _Uh-oh._

-          _I need you to tell the Fantastic Four to come pick Franklin up._

-          _Oh right. I saw that on the news. You do know that the media have framed this as a kidnapping, right?_

-          _Don't remind me, please. What's their theory on how I controlled the Sentinels?_

-          _Hacking program._

-          _If I could control the Sentinels, then what the Hell are we fighting for?_

-          _I’m just the messenger._

-          _How have you been? What happened?_

-          _I needed to be afk. You remembered I said that they were suspicious, right?_

-          _Right. So you went offline. How did your brain even do that?_

-          _Think of it as pulling out all of the plugs at once._

-          _Sounds painful._

-          _It was. But I needed to give them a scan of my brain which was highly underrated._

-          _I’m sorry, Iron Man._

-          _It’s okay. But listen, I’ve been processing some of the things we got out of the raid. I haven’t interpreted all of it yet, but I have a list of the prisoners._

-          _You’re kidding me._

-          _Nope._

-          _No one besides Howard Stark knows that list._

-          _Now we do. I’m going to get in touch with Elastic Face. Talk to you later._

“Frank, it’s time to go,” Steve calls out. “Oh my god, what is that? Put it down.”

“I’ve never seen a rat this big before.”

“That’s because it’s been living of a lot of dangerous dump. Come on.”

-          _Tell you what._

-          _What._

-          _Say I’m awesome._

-          _Iron Man._

-          _Just a joke, Cap. The Fantastic Four have agreed to meet up with you and wait for it: talk to you._

-          _You’re kidding me._

-          _Nope._

-          _It’s a trap, Iron Man. They’re looking for revenge._

-          _I know most people from the government are lying liars taking the liar train to the boulevard of lies, but hear me out. Fantastic Four aren’t like that. They may have exchanged their attention and/or morals as superheroes, but as people they keep their promises. They were there, you took a shot for Reed, they know it wasn’t a kidnapping. Besides, I have full access to their house now. If something happens I can get you out. Trust me._

-          _It’s really risky, Iron Man._

-          _I know._

\----

Falcon drops him off the roof and fliesaway. It's weird to see him soar so freely; it has probably been awhile since he could do that without avoiding Sentinels. Steve actually isn’t sure that he has ever seen the sky this clear, at least not since his teens. He has asked the other Avengers to stay away, even though they might be the best possible way of escaping if this turns out to be an actual trap. But even if it was, they'd just be in danger too, and he'd never forgive himself if it was his mistake that took all of them down. This is his choice, his mistake if all fails. Wanda will make a great captain. It doesn’t stop Steve from fretting and he's hit with cold shivers and glacier fears.

This is a trap. Iron Man has been exchanged with an imposter during the radio silence.

Steve rolls around a pea of poison in his mouth and prays it won’t be necessary.

-          _I’ve got you, Cap. Keep Walking._

As he walks across the roof he notices that all the detectors they destroyed in their last visit have been replaced yet none of them starts shooting and the laser roof which had formed the other time is not to be sighted or felt, even as he walks across the platform over to the observatory. If Steve let the kid go now, his chances at escaping were more likely. But he doesn’t dare, afraid that there will be an ambush and Franklin will be caught in crossfire.

It’s the Thing he sees first, the sun kissed stone being still as a rock and scowling at him. Steve is almost scared for a second, the thought of that much indestructible power attacking him…

But Steve nears him and behind the shadow of the Thing, is a garden table with tall chairs. Steve is weary, but they’re all turned against him, laps barren, only the Human Torch wearing his uniform. There’s a phone on the table beside Reed, and Steve eyes it, but Richards is only looking at him. They’re all staring at him, stock still, as if they are afraid of scaring him. But this isn’t a robbery and Steve does not have a hostage and he certainly has no gun on anyone’s head.

He stops a decent space away from the table, within hearing range and outside sudden lunging.

He goes down on his knees and zips open his jacket. Franklin went to sleep on the ride, but he gently rubs his back. “Franky,” he mumbles. “We’re here. You’re home.”

Franklin groggily opens his eyes and then twists his head around. “Mommy?”

“Franklin.” Sue slowly blinks and it is clear she has been crying. She is visibly struggling not to jump up on her feet. Steve snaps open the belts and Franklin lands unsteadily on his feet, before running over to the table. Steve takes several steps back as the Fantastic Four stare at the boy with relief and overwhelming love.

“Mom!” he says and crawls onto her lap, and Sue is hugging him with tears in her eyes. The Thing shifts and Steve’s heart is pounding.

“Thank you,” Invisible Woman says, looking at him. Her brother is lighting up his hands, but a sharp reprimand from Mr. Fantastic stops him.

Sweat is running down Steve’s eyes and he tries to stand up from his kneeling position, but his leg is done, it’s cramping and throbbing in protest. He groans as he gets up and feels fresh blood leaking down his leg. Mr. Richards looks down at his pant leg, which is gradually turning purple as the red blood soaks it. Steve takes several steps back again.

“Are we done?” he asks. His heart pumps faster in compensation for the overwhelming exhaustion overpowering him, and too slowly the adrenaline sharpens his sight and wakes his body up.

“I’ve been watching your videos, Captain,” Richards says. “I trust that you won’t do us any harm.”

“I wish I could say the same, Mr. Fantastic,” Steve can’t help but snap back.

“We won’t break our part of the deal unless you do,” the Thing makes it clear.

“Oh, and is the Torch on board with that?” Steve questions sharply.

The Torch just crosses his arms.

“Have you received medical attention?” Invisible Woman asks.

“Was a bit busy hiding your son,” Steve says. “Can we start the meeting with that?”

“The Sentinels were upgraded five days ago,” Mr. Richards replies, clearly talking over his wife. “There must have been a malfunctioning.”

“I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t lie to me, Mr. Richards,” Steve sighs. “I know why your son was targeted; I know exactly what the Sentinels are programmed to do. Look, if this is how the meeting is gonna go, I’m just gonna leave.”

“We didn’t know he was a..." Sue’s voice dies out. _Saying the word would make it real, wouldn’t it?_ “If we knew, we wouldn’t have brought him to such a populated place.”

“But you knew what they were programmed to do in such a situation?” Steve asks. He sighs and massages his temples through the hood. “Splendid,” Steve nods. “Really, excuse my tone, but this?” He becomes silent and lifts his arms. “I mean, we really fucking outdid ourselves. America screwed up big time today.”

“We’re fixing it,” Mr. Fantastic says.

“How,” Steve replies. “Tell me, how are we going to justify that our killer robots attacked a kid? What if it had been one of those students who were a mutant at omega-level?”

“None of them were,” Mr. Richards talks back.

“But what if one of them had been?” Steve persists. “Sure, one of our conditions was that metahumans couldn’t come. By the way you do know that’s discrimination and against international law? Just reminding you. These people don’t have a duty to report themselves as superhumans to the state like we do. They could have been in the closet, for all we know.”

“That’s their own responsibility.”

“So we’re justified, that’s what you’re saying.” Steve starts pacing. “Then what if one of them have debut during their stay? There are 12 known Omega-level mutants out there, 13 including your son, and only three are Registered. Do they deserve instant execution because they keep their condition a secret? Does your son?”

-          _You’re being kind of harsh, Cap, geez._

Steve stares at the screen and sighs. He puts the phone away and looks up at them. Sue looks conflicted; Ben is kind of unreadable, the Torch looks unsettled and Mr. Fantastic distant. “I realize these are difficult questions to answer.” He tries to sound gentle. And when he doesn’t sound like it, he tries to look it. “But you are in charge of the different program settings in Sentinels, Mr. Fantastic. Yes, I do know. You’re the reason thousands of metahumans can remain in the closet, because their powers are far from omega-level. But I need you to be truthful now. I need you to tell me that this won’t happen again.”

“I can’t,” Reed clarifies. “I may be judge for what the Sentinels perceive as a threat, but many settings of them are simply law. I can’t change the law.”

“Did you try to prevent this law?”

Now Mr. Richards just looks thoughtful. “No. I agree with the government that omega-level mutants are to be treated as an immediate threat. They are rare and most of them are outlaws.”

“Except your son is none of these things,” Steve says.

“There will be exceptions.”

“So you agree to Register your son?”

“No!” the Storm siblings break out and Reed freezes with his mouth open as if he hasn’t taken their disagreement into account. He closes his mouth and frowns at them.

Steve looks at Franklin. “I won’t tell anyone,” he says. “That he is a mutant. This is your own choice to make. Stark will help you set in his DNA, so they won’t perceive him as a threat.”

Reed looks doubtful. “And what do you gain from this?”

Steve is _so_ done. “I did it what I did, because it was the right thing to do. I just thought - ” His voice falters out. “I just thought that you still knew what that was.”

“We’re retired.” Johnny is rubbing his forehead. “It’s not our responsibility anymore to save people.”

“Was that what you thought, when you used your legal immunity to try to severe my spinal cord with your powers?”

“You broke into our home!”

“You don’t know how it is,” the Thing says. “Losing everything.”

It’s almost like being slapped. “Losing _everything_? Really? _Everything_? Because as far as I can tell, Reed still has his wife, they both still have their son, you still have your wife, Johnny still has his sister and you all still have your _home_ and _safety_. I’m not trying to belittle your sacrifices, but _everything_?”

He can’t breathe. He keeps seeing Bucky’s body behind his eyelids, all that blood, their abandoned apartment, Steve living on the streets. “Do you even know what ‘everything’ means?”

And then there’s the sound of wings and Sam is landing beside him.

“Enough,” he says and Steve reminds himself, _not everything_. “Cap, we’re out of here.”  

\----

-          _So you’re basically saying that you got there, shouted at them, gained no agreement or information whatsoever and left in rage?_

-          _Yes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Tony fights.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, so sorry for the long hiatus, been busy with moving, work, university, etc. This chap was looked over by the wonderful [Renae](http://agentshnucumbs.tumblr.com/), and any mistakes are entirely my own. I have a bunch of chaps ready, so updating should be coming more frequently from now on. Thanks for reading :D

Steve is brushing his teeth, standing over the sink, once again avoiding his own eyes in the mirror. He has showered and patched himself up. He’s debriefed with the other house residents, the media has been informed about Franklin’s return and he’s checked in with Jose.   
Clint is glaring at people up from his nest, refusing to let anyone check how bad the damage is and Pietro is snoring away in his hammock. He had been caught in some debris, but hadn’t suffered more than some scrapes and bruises. Wanda is unharmed and Steve can’t help but notice how well she had done today. Almost none of her hexes had gone wrong.   
Steve finishes wrapping his leg and tucks the bandages into the first aid kit. The pull of his muscles makes every step into a limp. He puts on some water and makes a pot of tea using the Goodnight herbs. He doesn’t know if it will work. He had stopped by the herbal shop before the parade and the manager had let him take some stuff with him. This tea is supposed to be relaxing with chamomile and passionflower. Whatever those are. Steve tucks out the box and sniffs experimentally at it. The scent is round although intense. He digs around and finds the lavender drops. When the rest of the water is done boiling, he makes the usual tub, this time adding some of the oil.   
While the water cools a bit, he makes a round, wakes Pietro up and forces the boy to down a liter of water, before he goes to poke Clint with a broom until the archer accepts the cup of tea. At last, Steve pushes the tub in front of Wanda’s feet – she doesn’t even protest this time, watching the news with a dubious expression as her feet dip down. He sighs and she accepts the cup of tea, just to put it on the table and lean towards the screen.  
“You shouldn’t watch that,” he feels like he needs to say.   
She sends him a withering look and he shrugs because he did try. Watching the news and listening to the repetitive accusations and harsh words of the people, is frankly a bad habit he shares with her. He sits down by her side.   
“So,” Steve mumbles in a low voice, not sure that his approach is welcome. “You did really good today.”  
“Yeah,” she hums.  
He is beginning to say something, when the pattern of today’s events is broken up and Mr. Stark is suddenly standing at a press conference with a million microphones shoved up in his face.  
“I am here to speak to you about the sudden outburst of Sentinels at the parade today,” he cuts to the chase. “Some days ago the Sentinels were upgraded for the parade and I’m afraid there must have been a malfunction during the process, resulting in the Sentinels scanning Franklin B. Richards as a metahuman. This was a mistake: Franklin Richards have already been tested if he has inherited some of his parents’ superhuman abilities and the test showed zero signs of that.” He pauses as the journalists tries to overpower him with questions and he lifts a hand to stop them. Resolutely he continues his statement: “For that I apologize to the Fantastics; there were no casualties that day but their child was still in great danger and it has been a traumatizing experience for us all. I see myself responsible, as The Sentinels are produced by Stark Industries and their updates are run by us. They ruined a joyful day which was supposed to be an event written down in history; nations coming together after many, long years.” He clears his throat. “I would also like to gather attention on the accusations of the vigilante group, the so-called Avengers. They put their lives at risk and saved not only Franklin’s life by keeping him hidden from the Sentinels, while their program was corrected; they also provided help to the Fantastics. Mr. Fantastic will never admit this to anyone,” and with these words Mr. Stark smirks and the journalists laugh a bit, “but Captain America took a fatal shot for him and if not, there would have been a great casualty that day. We would have lost Mr. Fantastic, who has been serving the country for decades and providing solutions to the daily obstacles we have. Therefore I would like the people to please drop the charges.”  
Mr. Stark leaves the stage without further comment and Wanda sighs long and hard. Steve looks up and catches Clint staring at the screen. “Not like they had anywhere to throw the charges,” the purple-masked Avenger comments and settles back out of view. “I want more tea.”  
“So,” Wanda sighs, “seems like Mr. Stark really decided to be the bigger man.”  
Steve isn’t surprised. “He also worked things in our favor,” he comments thoughtfully, leaning back.   
After having thrown a pillow to the head, Steve takes the hint and brings Clint another cup of tea and soon his soft snores become another sound of white noise. Wanda slumps into the cushions and Steve gently pulls away the tub and tucks her in. With the gentle noise of the TV in the background, he enters the bathroom to check on the healing process. The painful throb of the wound has dulled into an ignorable burn, but is still deep and emitting something which might look like pus; at further inspection, because Steve has never had an infection before, he realizes it’s just excess fluid, a pinkish aftermath of the bleeding. He cleans it up and ignores the scratches and bruises all over his body that won’t need attention.   
With a sigh, he soaks his face in water. All of the Avengers had found their rituals after missions to wind down but he never could, his body too wired and too ready for battle. It is what has kept him going this past year and made him stand the hellish schedule, but at times like this it could be a curse.   
He straightens up again.  
A man is standing behind him in the mirror. He has shoulder length, brown greasy hair and stubble all over his jaw. His face is the mask of a haunting ghost, his red rimmed eyes intensely clear as they stare at Steve in the mirror. They’re blue and it takes a second for Steve’s brain to identify the eyes as the ones who had once given him those warm, assuring glances.   
“B…” he squeaks before his throat closes off and he can’t speak.  
“It’s a lie, Steve,” Bucky solemnly says. “Everything’s a lie.”  
“What?” Steve turns around, but only grabs thin air. Bucky is gone.  
Shaking Steve slides down the wall, staring at the spot where Bucky should have should have should have should have stood. But he isn’t there and Steve feels like he is going crazy. He hates this, he hates just having to the deal with the loss, hates his skin: the living proof of his failure. He presses his forehead onto his knees and closes his eyes. For long moments everything is quiet, and Steve can’t tell how long it has been, when his phone starts ringing. He doesn’t want to answer. He can’t, he is stuck, but still his body moves, his knees and hands crawl over the bathroom tiles to grab the phone placed in the charger in his bedroom. “Hello?”   
There is a hesitant silence. “I really should stop calling you when you’re obviously dead tired.”  
Steve can’t even smile at the sound of that voice and stares at the made bed. Something does flare up, expectant and nervous and relieved and happy, but grey lays upon those feeling like black oil.  
“You’re pissed,” Tony concludes and there’s a sound of him readjusting the phone as if he shifting into a new position.  
“It’s been a long day and I thought I was more than a flirt by now, Tony,” Steve counters, perhaps a bit harshly. “I thought I deserved to know these things but I apparently I don’t.”  
“’Deserve’?”  
“Deserve,” Steve insists. “A heads up before surgery would have been great. A phone call during recovery would have been fine too, but I guess a text would have been enough.”  
Tony doesn’t say anything and Steve immediately feels bad. Captain America had been there on that rooftop that night and witnessed Tony wanting to give up on a normal life; not wanting to drag his boyfriend down. So Steve should be sympathetic and praise that Tony even gathered the courage to make this phone call at all. And yet he can’t. A significant part of Steve feels let down and he hates himself for being selfish and letting his hurt undermine the situation, because geez, Tony had brain surgery, an important part of his life has been taken from him with it, how can Steve make this all about him? What the Hell is wrong with him?   
“I’m sorry,” Tony so fucking carefully apologizes, and Steve’s heart kind of breaks. God, he is such an A-hole. “I’ve been kind of shutting you out and not giving you a chance to stand by my side.”  
Steve sighs, his anger evaporating, simply leaving him tired.  
“I know you’ve been calling and calling and been waiting for me to call since you knew about the surgery,” Tony marches on. “You’re not just a flirt, Steve. You matter, a lot, and that’s why I couldn’t let you see me that way.”  
Steve sighs, because he knows. “You’re calling now,” he acknowledges. “I’m sorry too. For blowing up on you. I know things have been hard for you.”   
“You were at the parade today?”  
“Yeah. You skipped it? I didn’t see you on the balcony with your father.”  
“No, I was there. Sunlight and I aren’t really good friends at the moment.”  
They talk for a while and Tony doesn’t let much on about his recovery. Instead he complains about Rhodey’s leave, Pepper Potts once again fixing up catastrophes.   
“Dad’s upset,” Tony admits. “There’s actually a lot of genius level intellects Registered, but none of them had to get the neurochips.”  
“It’s unfair,” Steve speaks up and he can hear Tony hold his breath. “You know it is.”  
“This line could be monitored, Steve.”  
“They’re not gonna touch me, I’m Stark property.”  
Tony giggles and it makes Steve smile in return. “Didn’t stop them from touching me though.”  
“You’re Stark Resilient. Obviously just a cheap copy of the real deal.”  
“Is that so?”  
“That is so.”  
“That doesn’t make sense then you’re Stark Resilient too.”  
“Psst, he will have my head if I ever disappoint you. Having Stark Industries protection is my benefit of my risky contract. Go ahead, it says so underneath ‘terms and conditions’, named ‘Shovel Talk Insurance’.”  
“Hey, I know for a fact that he doesn’t view you as a threat to our little family. No shovel talk.”  
“Guess I have to change that.”  
“Guess you have to change that.”  
Steve is fully smiling now.   
“So…” Tony says awkwardly and Steve waits. “Wanna come and make out?”  
“Do you think that’s a good idea after the parade failure? Your security team is kind of – “  
“Pepper will meet you halfway then. She has wanted to meet you anyway. You should get the contract ready and probably add some benefits, because she is waaaay scarier than Dad.”  
\----  
As Tony promised, Pepper Potts Hogan is waiting for him when Steve steps out of the private elevator. She is a classy, well-taken care of woman with crow’s feet and wrinkles around her mouth are turned upwards, and still there is something, a cape of authority clarifying her importance, her worth, how much she has done for both the Starks and the company all these years. When she sees him, dripping wet from the sudden rain of the day, she doesn’t smile, but looks at his wet form with a calculating – not glare – frown. Her lips thin when he takes off his jacket, revealing the white shirt transparent in its wet form, clinging to his muscled torso. She eyes his backpack and then sends a glance to the security team, who immediately understands it as the order it is and steps forward.  
Seems like he isn’t going to be let through as easily as Tony had hoped for.  
Good.  
Steve does a full body shake. Mrs. Hogan makes a shrill noise as she shields her face with her hands, drops of water scattering all over the security team and the machines. “Hey, Steve Rogers, still not an assassin,” he grins at her. “You must be Mrs. Hogan?”  
She narrows her eyes at him, but doesn’t say anything, just nods him towards the machines.   
Without prompting he hands in his phone and headphones and laptop. The laptop is for his report Monday morning and the headphones are mostly just for show, something all the people his age have with them. In real life he’s too paranoid to walk around deaf and after having spent the first 17 years of his life asking people to speak louder, he has come to appreciate his enhanced hearing a lot more. He takes off his shoes and walks through the metal detector and then through a metahuman detector. Both of them send him through with a green light and he patiently waits as the team pats him down and clears him.  
Pepper is waiting at the entrance towards the glass bridge and he silently joins her side, stumbling to get his shoes back on without falling behind. Out of the corner of his eyes, he does another mental scan of her form. The slighter tilt to her loin as she walks tells him she has been sitting at a desk for too long and has forgotten to stretch it out. Her back is straight (discipline), hands red yet soft (she is trying to heal them with ointment but they’re turning skinless), her movements are smooth and easy (engages in regular exercise, perhaps something for flexibility too), but the tension in her neck as she squints at the lights suggests that she probably hasn’t gotten a lot of sleep.  
“You’re not fooling me,” she makes it clear as she looks over her shoulder.  
“I don’t expect that, m’am,” he replies. He hasn’t called anyone M’am, since, jeez… before the orphanage? His mother had always taught him to do that, but as he grew up, he gradually stopped thinking that he automatically owned adults respect, just because they were adults. “Wait, we’re going to cross the glass bridge now, right?”  
“Yes, you’ve been here before,” she drawls.  
He nods, a little nervous and then promptly stops a second before the glass bridge starts. He glares at his feet, ordering them to move. For Pete’s sake, Falcon has flown him far above ground, but still he trusts Falcon. He does not trust glass. Besides, he could survive most falls. Not this one.  
The loyal CEO and former PA roll her eyes and huffs. “What, you want me to hold your hand?”   
It’s meant to be mocking and all blood rushes to his head as he looks away. “Tony walked with me last time,” he admits. “Keep walking, I will be right there.”   
He expects impatience, but instead Mrs. Hogan sighs and reaches out her hand. Steve stares at it, stares at the glass, somehow convinces himself that the glass won’t kill him once he has reached his safe-base – the strawberry blonde woman – and then sprints the five steps and takes her hand. She doesn’t wait for him to settle, just stomps across the glass as if it’s titanium, indefuckingstructible, her heels clicking sharply and too loud. Her hand is very warm and very small in his, but her fingers are firm and manicured nails sharp.  
She walks with him and he avoids looking out which should be ridiculous, because Captain America jumped off a rooftop with a kid in his arms yesterday and has skydived a Fantasticar with his team into Old Manhattan, but this… he is above clouds. Somehow that makes it totally different when he really thinks about it. Somehow Tony had distracted him from those thoughts last time he had been here.   
JARVIS opens up the gates in advance and the CEO starts slowing down, her march turning into a graceful pace. She stops in the lobby, turning around. “Want me to hold your hand to the workshop?” she says and he can feel his face burning. The corners of her mouth start to curl. “Mr. Stark has been… moody.”  
“People I can take,” he shrugs, breathing out.  
“Just not heights?”   
He shrugs again, doesn’t know what to say, and she pats him on the shoulder, before putting him in JARVIS’ hands who eloquently leads him towards the living room. Again, he notices all the things Tony had distracted him from last time, the honey-colored cumaru wood floor, the circular roof windows, light colored walls and modern, white and grey furniture. Despite the art deco look on the outside, the three-story mansion is very modernly designed inside, roomy and open, as if the place once hosted parties and had been filled with people. Steve knows that Howard and Maria Stark had been a very social couple and that things had changed when Maria died. When Tony had turned two, he had officially been Registered and Howard had moved both of them to Malibu.  
“Yes, I know. I know I’m aware. What do you want me to do?” a voice reaches him, thrown around in all that empty air the living room provided.   
Steve halts and straightens. Mr. Stark is sitting on a grey couch, his shirt unbuttoned and his styled hair messy. He is tapping hectically at a tablet, his shoes thrown off a fair distance away and a plate with sandwiches and juice left untouched beside him.   
“If you want me to upgrade the Sentinels… Drawing up a new contract, yes. I know the Avengers are destroying them too easily. No. No, I’m not willing to do that… Because the Sentinels are guardians of the public, sir, not death machines… Yes, I know Stark Industries used to sell weapons, but it doesn’t anymore. No, they won’t need to do that, the Avengers aren’t attacking anyone, who cares? I’m aware that the tax payers are paying for the bill… look I can’t offer anything. The current Sentinel model is sustainable, it’s not worth drawing up a new government contract for just because some kids know how they tick.”  
Steve almost expects the characteristic Angry Hang Up, throwing the handset into the housing with a fierce click and everything, but the StarkPhone is far too modern for that, attached to Mr. Stark’s ear and disconnecting by its peaceful self.  
Steve politely coughs and Mr. Stark jumps. His eyes snap unto Steve’s face.  
“You.” He manages to sound accusing right away. “You’re listening to my phone conversations!”  
“Sorry,” Steve sheepishly apologizes. “Uhm, JARVIS said Tony is in the workshop and you will need to give me a temporary override code.”  
“He doesn’t want to see anybody, shoo.” The accusing tone turns to pure indifference as the man literally waves him away, as if Steve is some fly. Steve wonders if he is special or if that’s how all outsiders of the Stark household are treated.   
“Incoming call,” JARVIS politely proclaims.  
“Steve!” Tony’s voice rings out. “Stop arguing with the old man and come down here, I’m opening up now, Dad don’t follow.”  
Howard directs a glare at him and Steve leaves with a ducked head.  
\----  
Steve frowns at the glass wall for a second, not really sure if this is it. It’s all dark inside. He tilts his head and is about to ask JARVIS, when the door slides open.  
The air in there is hot and smells like metal, burned wires and human. While Steve’s eyes adjust, he gets a rough outline of the workshop, but he cannot make sense of the constructions and machines. Steve is carefully making way through the darkness, when something grabs his ankles and he falls down face first into the floor, his leg kicking out in reflex and getting wrapped with his other leg in response.  
“Steeeve,” Steve can hear Tony whine in the darkness, his arms around Steve’s ankles loosening and he starts to make way up Steve’s body. When he is at Steve’s chest, he shifts around a bit until he is comfortable. Steve can’t help but laugh. “Don’t laugh at me. I’m sick. Make me a sandwich.”  
He can only see the skinny figure of Tony, feel him breathing and his right hand can’t help but go up on its own and settle gently on Tony’s cheek, before moving through Tony’s hair. The bandages are gone and his scalp feels hot to the touch. Then something hard is underneath Steve’s wrist and carefully he slides fingers back over the hard object behind Tony’s ear. There’s no bump, the flesh just turns into metal at one point, square and warm with body heat. He searches the scalp and finds another small neurochips behind Tony’s other ear. Tony lets Steve do his inspection in silence. “Why are you not in your room,” Steve clears his throat.  
“Because Dad and I share the workshop,” Tony giggles. “And I’m locking him out. He’s been wandering back and forth for hours.” And then more pleasantly: “Trying to respect my space.”  
“You know…” Steve silently says. “He probably feels really guilty.”  
“He should be!” Tony snaps. “Look at me, sitting in the fucking darkness, because I can’t – “ He stutters.   
“He fought,” Steve gently talks. “Even I can tell that he fought. And this is hurting him, Tony.”  
“Then maybe he shouldn’t have supported Registration, he brought this on himself.”   
Steve stiffens and eyes the lab, the cameras no doubt in here somewhere.   
And honestly, Captain America knows what would have happened after Stamford if the Registration Act hadn’t passed. That act had been the lesser of two evils, a compromise which had to be given if superhumans could even dream of living in peace. He isn’t as stubborn to deny that Mr. Stark had been coming from a place completely ridiculous. But they should have known that the very idea of Registration had been wrong, why it was bound to spin out of control, why they should have gotten it out of the system when the fire blew over, while they still had the power to. “I’m sorry. It sucks.”  
Tony shoves him away impatiently, which only means that he has to sit up. Steve doesn’t get up, unmoving.   
“I’m tired of being in a cage!” Tony yells. “I’m sick of being in that stupid database!”  
“This lab is probably monitored, Tony,” Steve warns.  
“So?!” Tony shouts. “Isn’t anything I haven’t said to my dad these past couple of days! SURPRISE DAD HASN’T OUTED ME YET FOR SPEAKING TREASON! Hey, maybe I should break into some building or do something remotely terrorist-ish, just so they can have a fucking reason for locking me away!”  
“JARVIS, please stop monitoring.”  
“I’m sorry, Mr. Rogers, but it is against my Security Protocols.”  
“You don’t see it, Steve? They will be right, they’re waiting for me to abuse my brain, and my own dad is waiting too, just so he doesn’t have to feel bad about doing this to me!”  
“Tony, you shut up and you do it right now.”  
“Or what? Gonna tell on me too?”  
“Steve, I can’t bare this, I can’t –“  
“Just … please just try, let the medicine sink in – “  
“It’s been a month, I can’t – Steve, I can’t, my whole body hurts – “   
“You know what the alternatives are, Bucky, the test is two weeks away, you can do it – “  
And then Steve grabs Tony, smashing his lips unto Tony’s. There’s no love there, no unity, just pure intent and raw overpowering and Tony subsides, holding unto Steve like it’s something he has been waiting for and Steve hates to crush his anger like this, crush Tony. He doesn’t want to kiss him this way, he doesn’t want to be an oppressor and God knows that’s how he acts, that’s what Tony sees –   
Tony tears his mouth loose and hushes him. “Sssh, it’s okay, I’m sorry, it’s okay, take it easy –“   
Only then does Steve realize that he is the one shaking all over and that he isn’t breathing properly. He quivers underneath Tony’s careful hand running through his locks, and Steve holds his breath, mouth closing with an audible click. He looks away and closes his eyes. “’You can’t do that. Maybe getting it over with is easier. But I won’t ever see you again, no one will.” Steve shakes him. “There’s nothing left then.”  
Tony sags. “What do you want me to do? I can’t do any more of this.”  
Steve puts his hands on Tony’s cheek and kisses his forehead. “I need you to keep fighting.”  
“Sir,” JARVIS butts in. “It may be in your best interest to let Mr. Rogers have a change of clothes and a warm shower, before he catches a cold.”  
“Oh,” Tony says and pokes Steve’s wet jacket. “I thought that was my imagination.”  
“Nope,” Steve replies. “It’s raining outside.”   
Steve exhales and Tony’s fingers dig into his sides. Jarvis is right, Steve is starting to freeze even though the risk of a cold is less likely. Still, he doesn’t make a move and Tony seems to have no urge to either. The lab is warm, Tony has calmed down somewhat and Steve finally feels sleepy. As he dozes, flashing images of red-glowing Sentinels starts to fill his mind, Mr. Fantastic’s frozen face, the trashing of objects at Jose’s café.   
It’s with a startle Steve wakes up and finds that Tony is shaking against him. He doesn’t want to let go of Tony, just not quite yet, but Tony’s immune system is probably not at his best right now. Steve starts to sit up and Tony is completely loose, feels lighter than Steve remembers. The younger boy straightens and ends up sitting with his knees spread around Steve’s thigh and Steve sits up completely to curl a hand behind Tony’s head and kiss his forehead. Tony’s eyes flutters shut and his lashes are fanning out on his cheekbones. The thick hairs are clumping together, his cheeks cold and sweating and flushed all at once.   
“You won’t crumble,” Steve reassures, almost whispering. “You’re titanium. Titanium and fire.”  
Tony shakes his head and slowly opens his eyes. “I’m just a boy. Nothing like the man you see in me.”  
Steve’s mouth quirks. “I don’t know about being a man. But I know there’s a heart of gold in there.”  
Tony closes his eyes again and he breathes out through his nose. Steve tilts his head.  
“Gold is soft,” Tony says hoarsely. “What good is it.”  
Steve smiles. “It made me fall in love with you.”  
Tony’s eyes snap up to him and his jaw clenches.  
“You don’t have to say it back,” Steve flushes, his inner thoughts going toosoontoosoonfuckfuckfuck. “I just – “ Steve rubs his face and looks up at Tony. “You make me happy. You make me feel – “ He falters again. ‘Like maybe I could learn to love again’. “Just don’t hide from me, Tony.”  
Now Tony is narrowing his eyes at him. “You’re the one who’s hiding.” His voice is harsh and unrelenting.  
Steve pulls back, though it shouldn’t be a surprise that Tony is smart enough to not believe Steve’s claim of innocence. Tony could have faith, but faith wouldn’t explain all the suspicious factors, how Steve isn’t close with anybody at school, his lack of college money or scholarship, his empty student profile. Fact is that Steve is Captain America and what he is doing towards Tony is wrong. It’s lying. He can’t have Tony.  
He stands up. Tony rolls off him and even in the dark, Steve can sense the brunet looking up at him with big, dark eyes, watching for his next move.  
“I didn’t notice at first,” Tony talks. “Like everyone else. No one really knows you, Steve. Of course I got suspicious when I was your sudden target of affection. But I don’t think you’re lying about your feelings. Not anymore.”  
“You approached me,” Steve can’t help but defend.  
“So I was asking for it?” Tony carefully replies and Steve’s shoulders slump.  
There’s a long silence where Tony is staring at him with eyes which sees too much, and Steve feeling bad, feeling upset.  
“The previous address you lived on isn’t there anymore,” Tony says. “The one you live on right now is false too.”  
“You’ve been checking my background,” Steve mutters, resigned rather than surprised.  
“I had to,” Tony snaps back. “I can’t invite someone harmful into my life, Steve, I have my home, my dad and Pepper and Happy, they’re my only family. No matter what Dad did, I can’t let anyone hurt him. You don’t need to tell me everything, just promise me nothing will happen to him with me letting you stay.“  
Steve nods and when he remembers that Tony can’t see him, he replies with a weak: “Okay.”   
His hands are shaking. He understands what Tony is saying and that’s why he can’t be here, be here with Bucky’s blood on his hands and be Captain America and love Tony at the same time. He can’t stand here and say that Howard isn’t going to justify building and selling Sentinels, he damn well knew were used in the wrong way.   
“Steve…” Tony sounds pleading.   
“I had family too,” Steve bellows and he can see Tony flinch. Steve turns around and starts walking.  
“JARVIS, lock down the lab!” Tony shouts. The glass door slides shut and Steve doesn’t dare hit it because it’d display his strength, so he just puts his hand onto it and his fingers curls into a fist.  
“You’re not leaving until we fix this,” Tony demands and more desperately: “You told me you wouldn’t leave.”  
Steve whips around. “That was when you didn’t dig into people’s past. I didn’t say “no matter what”.”   
“You’re such a fucking hypocrite!”  
“Your family is built on hypocrisy!”  
Tony raises his hand to slap him and without thinking Steve’s hand shoots up and grabs it before it’s even near his face. Which only makes Tony raise his other hand and Steve sees it coming and he doesn’t stop it, because he deserves it. The hand hits harder than he expects and he automatically lets go of Tony’s other hand because he thinks Tony is done, but it only makes the boy attack again and they’re right back to how they started, now just with physical violence. Steve takes a couple of hits and they are far more vicious than a boy with Tony’s build should be able to feel, but then he is grabbing both of Tony’s wrists and holds them to the side.  
“You’re a fucking liar!” Tony shouts, trashing against him. “I shouldn’t have fucking stopped you from leaving!”  
“Don’t you think I hate what you do to me, the choices I have to make for you?” Steve cries back. “The only reason you probably want me, is because you can’t stand to stay in your levitating fortress alone.”  
“You think I couldn’t have had ten of you?” Tony spits. “No, what I really think is that you’re doing this out of pity!”  
“Pity?” Steve repeats with obvious scorn. “You’re far from pathetic, Tony, get a clue of how the world looks!”   
“Then tell me what you were really doing before college! Geez, it can’t be that fucking hard to just get it over with –“ and Steve is throwing Tony’s wrists away, backing off.  
“I was homeless, okay?” Steve shouts. “My home was a fucking sleeping bag, I was lending showers and clothes from shelters and eating rotten leftovers from trash cans. There, happy?”   
Tony looks stunned. Steve’s furious. Scratching that wound would just make everything come bleeding out. He had forgotten. The period of what seemed like endless hopelessness; where, for the second time in Steve’s life, he had been completely alone but this time there had been no orphanage, no nice caretakers who had – despite what people thought of them – truly done their best, run themselves ragged to provide. He had forgotten Bucky. How his new body had felt so new and overwhelming. Before he had been half-deaf and on top of the colorblindness he had been nearsighted and suddenly his lungs could breathe for the first time, all these sensations he had never been able to notice before were constantly pouring into his mind and he felt hunted and paranoid and all that energy this body could harbor, all that strength, turned into restlessness and confusion and frustration.  
He’s forgotten how hard it is to remember.  
Steve shakes his head. “Now you know. I’m gonna go.”   
He turns and then Tony is grabbing him again and literally digging his heels in. “Don’t leave. We can work it out.”  
“There are things I don’t want you to know about, Tony, why can’t you respect that – “  
“Then how dare you ask me to not hide – “  
“I don’t demand answers of you just so I can stay – “  
“I’m in a fucking cage, I need to know who I’m – “  
“How – “  
One of his phones starts to ring. Steve closes his eyes and Tony goes “Don’t you dare take that – “  
“It might be important, I have to take it,” Steve says and picks up. “Rogers speaking. I have company.”  
No one responds instead the phone screeches loudly and shuts down. He looks at its blinking screen and then at Tony. “Did you just block my call.”  
“Now how the fuck would I do that by standing and glaring at you,” Tony dismisses, rolling his eyes, but his mouth is curling like he is thinking of something funny. “This levitating fortress has a lot of reception issues. It will be back in a minute.“  
Steve squints suspiciously at the supposedly innocent genius.   
“A StarkPhone wouldn’t fail you like that,” Tony halfheartedly bitches and Steve almost smiles because that is so typically something Tony would say.   
With a rising feeling of dread, Steve looks back down on his phone and is reminded of how much he needs to do. Jose is probably on the run again, he hasn’t heard from Falcon since texting him on the way to Stark Tower, Mr. Stark is currently being pressured into building more dangerous Sentinels (which Fury and he had predicted would happen at some point and they had discussed ideas, which had become fail-safes), not to talk about the fact that Steve had to check in with Bruce to find out how the Hell Mr. Fantastic had randomly become all frozen during the attack, which reminded him of Thor and how the transportation, databases and shelters were going and he had to call Spiderman because at this point some idiots in the military usually had the great idea of hiring former super villains in the police forces and Spiderman would surely be the first one to know, and oh God, he should have forced in some hours of sleep before he got here.  
But Tony is looking at him when Steve finally puts his phone away and he… he can’t imagine being anywhere else but here.   
Steve starts laughing.   
Tony promptly looks like he might throttle him.  
“It’s just,” Steve chuckles. “We’re both so fucking stubborn. We’re gonna drive people nuts and tear the world apart one day.”  
“I guess we just have to learn to trust each other,” Tony points out sharply.  
“And respect each other’s boundaries.”  
Tony isn’t smiling but doesn’t look mad either and Steve almost starts laughing again. He looks at Tony and his stupid deer-like brown eyes and stupid thick lashes and Tony does this stupid thing where he smiles at Steve and it clicks. It’s ridiculous, but this fight is almost like the search is complete and they match. Steve looks at Tony’s eyes, which look just as heated as Steve’s chest feels, knows at that very second that Tony wants to be underneath Steve’s skin just as much and suddenly Steve wants to be underneath his. They take a step forwards at the same time and never has it felt so good to hold somebody, like their nerves are connected through electricity and Steve can’t help but shiver and press his face against Tony’s neck and breathe in. Tony sighs and starts squirming impossibly closer.   
Steve chuckles when Tony presses his cold nose tip right under Steve’s ear and nips at his skin.   
“I want to eat you,” Tony lets Steve know.  
“Please do,” Steve allows and catches Tony’s mouth. It feels dehydrated, his lips are dry and rough, right until Tony opens his mouth and it is all wet heat and a longing tongue tasting the insides of Steve’s mouth, licking it as if Steve’s toothpaste brand is Tony’s favorite ice cream and he is licking the spoon clean and Steve’s chest flares up again, something soothing and hot.   
He wonders why he had ever wanted to not have this, this flood drowning him.   
Tony releases his breath and starts to suck in air, but Steve leans in and steals his breath away, leaning in his whole body. He isn’t afraid, he can’t even remember what fear smells like and his kisses are demanding, and Tony fights back with just as much power, kisses him with just as much thirst and fierceness, his hands raising up, one digging its fingers into Steve’s neck, the other palming Steve’s face, firmly holding it into place. Not letting Steve turn away from him. Tony wants Steve to feel him, every little bit. Steve can’t remember why he had to be other places then here and he walks Tony’s body backwards until the back of the young boy’s knees hit the front of the couch. He’s going under and it’s amazing.  
\----  
Phone.  
Tony starts to shift by the noise. Steve whimpers because it’s so nice and warm and Tony has somehow climbed all the way up to his chest during the night and the couch is seriously hurting his back, but… it’s nice.   
“Steve!” Wanda says. “Where the Hell have you been?”  
“Dohne.” He checks the clock. It’s 6 am on a weekend.  
“Your cell phone has been blocked for the last four hours.”  
“Oh.”  
“Seriously, Harlem police just called. Your guardian angel is a danger to the people they say.”  
“What.”  
“We can’t do it,” Wanda continues needlessly. “You’re the only one who knows him.”  
As in, he is the only one who knows Sam’s secret identity. “I will go. You do know that you’re my warrior queen, right?”   
“I guess that will do. Be safe, Steve.”  
“Tony,” he whispers and nuzzles Tony’s hair. Tony sighs and mouths Steve’s jaw. Steve massages the beginning of the brunet’s neck with two thumbs, carefully not to go anywhere near the neurochips. “I need to go.”  
That makes Tony open his eyes. They’re cold and estimating and maybe a tiny bit frightened. Steve kisses his mouth and Tony turns his head away. “Okay,” the genius allows, staring at the wall like an annoyed cat trying to ignore you.  
“I will be back,” Steve promises and lets his fingers crawl underneath Tony’s T-shirt. He touches the soft skin of Tony’s tummy and Tony sighs. With a kiss on Tony’s cheekbone and his temple, he sits up. “Take it easy for me, alright?” he asks when Tony finally looks at him again, his features softer. He kisses Tony on the mouth. “I’ll put some water for you on the table.”  
“Okay,” Tony grouses. “When will you come back?”  
“I don’t know. As soon as I can.” He kisses Tony again and then tugs him in. Tony sighs and his eyes close again, easily succumbing to sleep.  
Steve looks up, out of the window, at the New York skyline.  
It’s waiting.  
\----  
Steve would like to think he has been scouting around Harlem, looking for signs of his winged troublemaker. Thing is that if the signs had been there, he would probably have missed them, because all he does is daydream and rubbing the places Tony bit him with his hand. He had liked that patch of soft skin on Tony’s stomach, wanted to feel more.   
Since he isn’t looking the answer decides to come to him, when two skimpily clothed women cross the street to approach him. “Hello Captain,” the blonde smirks and he hurries to nod back, blinking images away from his mind. He seriously needs to get his shit together and think. “Looking for your wings?” she asks. “The cops are looking for that boy.”  
“Yeah, you’ve seen him?” he perks up.  
“We saw his juicy ass by the liquor store on 38th street followed by the police,” the dark-skinned girl beside the blonde replies.  
Nearby Wilson’s home, the roughest quarters of Harlem. Great. Why was he even back at his old place? After Sam had deserted, the H.A.M.M.E.R. agents had been sent to ransack everything. It’d be stupid to go back there. “Thank you, m’am.”  
“Ain’t gon’ give us some sugar for dat?” They both smirk flirtingly at him, matching smiles.  
“Uhm,” Steve shrugs out a twenty and reaches it out. “Sorry, m’am, I’m taken.”  
They boo at him as he sets his course and quickly makes way to the small apartment Sam used to live in. Steve had only been there once – before his transformation – and Sam had been with him the entire time and even followed him back to the train station – which Steve understood, he had been a very small guy and an easy target, though it had been obvious by Steve’s thin worn clothes and the ragged bag that he had been very poor and hadn’t carried anything of worth with him. Sam had still insisted that it hadn’t been a good idea to go alone.   
Steve’s not from a bad neighborhood. Had there been a lot of prostitution going on? Sure. Had people gotten mugged and attacked and did families avoid moving to the neighborhood? Yeah. But mostly the problem had been the poverty, drug addicts and the high risk of catching an STD. In that way, Harlem is very different; Steve’s neighborhood had been for the marginalized, while this part of Harlem resembles a jungle where only the strongest, most levelheaded people survive the stream. Any other place in New York Steve’s costume tended to protect him, here Steve isn’t so sure.   
And why is Sam in trouble with the police anyway? H.A.M.M.E.R. Steve could understand, especially when the deserter is kicking around his old neighborhood with costume on, but the police? They mostly left the Avengers alone and focused on real problems, which Harlem had enough of as far Steve knows.  
He knocks on the door, and there is rustling. Shouting, Reggae music and the door is opened up.  
A thin, tall boy is standing in front of him. Steve doesn’t even have the time to look properly at him, before he is ambushed by a wave of smoke. Marijuana. Oh Sam.  
“Hey,” the boy grins at him. “You’re Captain America.”  
“Surely, I am,” Steve replies. “I’m looking for Falcon.”  
“Oh. Hey Snap!” The boy waves him in with a welcoming, goofy grin. “Come in, man.”  
Steve walks in and the smell of sweat, dirty laundry and dust is added to the smoke. The TV is on, it’s the news still rallying on and on about SI and the Parade and how many foreigners had turned they ass straight back to their countries and the list of engineers with newer and better specs of the Sentinels, ready to take Mr. Stark’s place. Steve looks around, to the relaxed bodies, to the open windows and it doesn’t take many seconds for him to figure out why the police had been chasing Sam.   
“Snap, your bro Cap is here,” the boy who had opened the door announces.  
Sam is sitting on the couch, his boots on the table, still wearing the costume but with no mask and with a pretty, skinny girl tucked up his side, his face grimly staring at the news.  
“Snap!” the boy shouts and slowly Sam turns his face, which breaks out in a grin.   
“You were chased by the police,” he attacks before Sam can even greet him. “Because you flew while you were high.”   
“Well, the lady wanted a performance!” Sam grins. The girl beside him smiles up at him.   
“That’s it,” Steve snaps and turns off the TV. “Everyone out.”  
“Hey, Cap, relax – “   
Steve smacks the door up so hard that it slips off its hinges. “Now.”  
The five boys lazily get up and starts stumbling out of the door. Steve turns off the stereo. “You too,” he says to the girl, nodding towards the door.  
Her annoyed face turns into direct anger.“You ain’t gon’ tell me – “  
“Do you know what would have happened if your Snap got caught?” he interrupts. “Do you know what happens to superhumans in jail? If you want the best for him, you get out right now.”  
Sam doesn’t protest.  
“You will always be a fucking loser, Snap!” she curses at him as she takes her purse and stomps out, probably would have smacked the door if it hadn’t been already broken.   
He paces a bit in front of Sam, who looks completely relaxed. Then he sits down beside him and takes a deep breath.  
“Steeeeve,” Sam says, grinning at him.  
“This isn’t working, Sam!” Steve shouts. “These people gave away your identity! What if it hadn’t been me?”   
“Aw, relaaax, they wouldn’t – “   
“Get up!”   
Steve pulls his teammate up on his feet, before the winged man can even try getting up on his own. Falcon sways and leans into Steve.  
“Don’t be mad, Steve,” he mumbles. “I’ve only got you.”  
“Where’s Sarah? And Gideon?”  
“Man, I can’t… Gideon joined da army. They’re experimenting on him at this moment. He is doing the same thing I did, man. But he won’t listen to me. Won’t listen…”  
“And I guess you sent Sarah away.”  
“Far away. To somewhere… Oh! Florida. Lots of oranges over there… she was always a summer girl.” Sam rolls his eyes. “Just… far away from this fucked up city.”  
Steve picks up the white triangular mask and clips it unto the temple braces of Sam’s face. “Come on.”  
“We’re we going?”  
“To the clubhouse.”  
“Am I finally invited?”  
“You know we all ended up there because we had nowhere else to go,” Steve says. “If I had known you weren’t with your family anymore, I would have offered you.”  
“Well,” Sam snorts. “Now we’re only missing Iron Man.”  
“With how things are going on his end, you could probably hold your breath.”  
They walk for a little while, arm in arm just like they used to, but now it’s Steve supporting Sam instead of dragging the weight of his arm.   
“So, you’re not going to talk?” Sam asks.  
“About?”  
“Well, I don’t know. Why everyone thinks you’re dead and when I went to the police to put up a missing report, they said you didn’t exist. Why your apartment in Brooklyn was completely abandoned. Oh, and also, the whole … muscle thing.”  
“I don’t want to talk about it.”  
“Did someone force you to…?”  
“Drop it.”  
“Sure, Steve. Though I always knew you read my file.”  
“I needed to know if there were consequences. Of the Redwing experiments. I’m sorry.” Steve thinks of Redwing. But he isn’t going to bring that up, not even going to think about it.  
“So were there any consequences on your end?”  
“Not really. Except for my calorie intake which reminds me I’m starving. I think there’re some leftovers from yesterday.”  
“Team dinner? Yet another thing I wasn’t invited to.”   
“Shut up, Sam.”  
They walk in companionable silence and Sam slowly sobers up.   
“So where were you going?” Sam asks. “Saw your… your text from before? You told me to drop a message. You usually tell me to just call you.”  
“I was at my boyfriend,” Steve replies.  
“Oh my god,” Sam laughs in surprise. “I didn’t think there was anyone but Peggy for you.”  
“She’s back in England, where she should be,” Steve says, perhaps a bit too harshly.   
“Uh-huh,” Sam grins. “And what about that homeboy of yours, you were living with him… what was his name… Bucky?”  
Steve stiffens, gets hit by cold sweat. “He’s dead.”  
Horror slowly unfolds on Sam’s face and Steve doesn’t want to confirm whatever Sam has filled out the empty gap with.  
Half an hour later they’re back at the Avenger’s place. He bangs at the door and looks at Sam. “You will have to get your stuff later, when I’m sure H.A.M.M.E.R. hasn’t come searching for you. Remember how you got here without mixing identities?”  
“Sure, Cap,” Sam nods as the door is slammed open and Clint is staring at them with groggy, red eyes. It smells heavenly inside.  
Steve pushes in and Sam follows. Clint trundles over to the stove and looks into the giant pot. “Is he eating with us?” he asks, but is already pulling up more noodles.  
“Where’s the twins?”   
“Out. Some people. Mutants. They wanted to … you know?”   
“Sure,” Steve can’t help but smile. Of course Clint would be up at sunset, making dinner. Steve takes advantage and makes rounds around Clint’s form, his eyes searching for that injury he knows Clint keeps hidden. “How much sleep did you get last night?”  
“More than you,” Clint huffs. “Probably been fucking Stark all night, haven’t you?”  
Steve avoids Sam’s questioning glare to go pick up his Avengers phone, sees seven missed calls from seven different people, even though he’s quite sure he took care of business for at least ten hours when he left five hours ago.  
He dials up the first person. “Fury,” he greets.  
“Where the Hell have you been?”  
“I have a life, you know.”  
“Of course you do, Captain. I want you at the Metro Café, overseeing something and then I want an immediate report. There’s been a change in players.”  
\----  
Sue Storm is a smart woman. It actually takes 13 hours before Richards notices that neither his wife nor his son has come home on time. Or maybe she hadn’t needed to be smart; it isn’t a secret that Dr. Richards held long, very concentrated hours in the lab. Jose says they helped her because Sue is pregnant with Mr. Fantastic’s second child and she wants it born on Canadian soil. It becomes Steve’s job to relay a letter to Mr. Fantastic, where she explains things: She’s not divorcing Reed, just giving her second child a chance. Steve gives Franklin one last hug, calls him Franky-Cranky, before Nightcrawler teleports her away.  
Jose is watching Steve during the whole progress. Steve doesn’t dare ask him what it is he sees.  
By the end of the day, Steve has approximately an hour before he needs to be at a waiter job, and he lies on his bed with his face turned down. Sam has pulled up another futon on the floor, and is snoring slightly. If he had been awake, he would be chastising Steve right now – and Steve understands. He should it end with Tony, it was wrong, it was mean, cruel, but he … he loved the way it felt. He has no unkind motives, only feelings of love, so how could what he has been doing be wrong?  
It’s almost feels like he wants to end it, or rather, his need to do the right thing is so big that his mouth is just itching to say it, rip off the band-aid, and get it over with. He has always considered his will strong, not only because it has conquered fear on the battlefield. Fear on the battlefield isn’t nothing, but it is simple; standing up towards the sexism of your childhood friends or sister Theresa’s racist comments? Those things had been the hardest: losing friends. The enemy isn’t always the villain, a center of evil; most times it’s the social norms and values which happens in everyday life.  
So Steve wants to do the right thing. He wants to, but something in his head insists that he can’t help it. His morality doesn’t watch Tony’s sleeping back, hasn’t noticed how thick and long Tony’s under eyelashes are, or the intense look in his eyes when he is working or the haunted, claustrophobic look he gets sometimes when they talk about traveling or other countries, or how he smiles, as if he knows that every time he does he is closing his palm right around Steve’s heart. And weirdly enough, the humility. Tony is a prodigy, and not once have Steve seen him step down from admitting or openly admiring others’. And still, when it comes to his own genius? There’s almost hesitancy. As if he is ready to jump right out, but he isn’t sure that the world is ready for him.  
It probably isn’t but this is New York, so that doesn’t even matter. Tony is an adventurous and inventions flow from his hands like drawings used to flow freely from Steve’s. Artists’ hands provide society beauty and Tony’s solutions.  
And Steve needs him because Tony is someone he wants, and he wants Tony because he needs him. His heart says “want to” with some sort of resignation, as if he can’t just do it. It’s a problem for which he knows the solution, but something in him keeps playing oblivious, as if leaving Tony isn’t even an option. It’s a compromise his whole body seems settled on not making. He should be worried because the immoral deed in this does upset him, but he isn’t worried.   
Steve digs up his phone and slides through the pictures – a single one with blitz Tony sleeping on his chest, Tony sleeping on the couch in the lab and pouting up at him and their first two dates together, three photos in all where they’re actually posing together. It has been a while. They should go for a date soon again. When could Steve see him again.  
Steve catches himself and sighs.   
He takes a long shower, scrubbing his hands and nails and puts on a scentless deodorant. The restaurant isn’t one he has worked at before, very high class yet not well-known. He can’t smell of anything because that might mess with the odor of the food, he has to shave and comb his hair back so it won’t get into his eyes – which reminds him that he needs to have his hair cut at some time soon. He brushes his teeth and hides the tiny microphones in his pockets. They would go unnoticed through the security check and Fury has gotten him the job because it’s a regular meeting place for military.   
Thing with Steve’s body is that it works quicker. Everything is efficient and productive – which means that he uses a ridiculous lot of time on shaving, clipping nails, eating, getting his hair cut and he is supposed to look even more polished at this job. He drips some salt water in his eyes, covers the rash with some makeup, brushes his teeth after having downed two protein bars and shines his shoes.   
On the subway he memorizes the menu and googles probably all of it. That is the good thing about his eidetic memory, it makes new jobs so much easier.   
It’s seven pm when he arrives and it’s just starting to get busy. Steve finds that smiles aren’t welcome, but down-turned eyes are. It’s okay, these people are rich and if they want to feel the status difference in the way he behaves, he will do it, because the tip is one week of food and they eat a lot at the clubhouse. Seems he got into the 1%’s meeting quarters. He sneaks around in the restaurant while servicing, picking up pieces of conversations, but there seems to be no Important People in tonight. A lot of gossip though – she slept with her, she married him, these two has been dating, this man is just too much – and a fair share of gossip about the Starks. Mostly about the blonde sighted with Mr. Stark at the day of the parade, the mysteries about Maria Stark’s death and of course, the same old Registration-talk.   
They’re self-absorbed and he would usually dwell, but now he’s got orders to take. At nine the place is filled and a Latino couple arrives with their two-year old daughter even though it should actually be her bedtime by now. Florenca is the usual rich kid. Spoiled and attention-demanding, undernourished and neglected. Steve takes one look at her sour expression, which shouldn’t be on a face as young as hers, and finds them a subtle booth in the back of the restaurant where a temper tantrum won’t be bothering the other guests too much. Steve finds blankets and pillows for the guests outside, the evening quickly cooling down and turning foggy, goes to the cellar for that expensive, special vine from ’53 and then enjoys his break with an elderly lesbian couple who keeps handing him their remainders. A firm believer than no food should go the waist – especially not food which costs $2000 per plate – he lets them play rocket and spaceship as they route the fork into his mouth.  
10 pm and people are starting to trickle off – Steve’s long awaited Important People taking their place. They are quieter, with the typical unnecessary barking tone when they order something. As Steve brings tissues and first courses he plants the microphone underneath the table cloth.  
He is in the kitchen cleaning the lazy dishwasher when a bell rings and the hotel manager calls him out. “Rogers, you’ve been doing an excellent job tonight. There’s only that couple left and a class reunion will be arriving at midnight. I want you to take especially care of the room with the gold marble flooring. Alright?”  
“Yes, M’am.”  
He makes another route at the floor, filling glasses with Icelandic spring water because tap water has traces of chlorine from the water filtration system and it is said that rich people can taste the difference. He hears the glass bell ring, a very clear high-tuned sound Steve can easily detect in the louder noise of the restaurant. With steady steps he walks in, looks up and promptly freezes.  
It’s only a split second, yet it feels like an eternity. His eyes land automatically at the closest person, Mr. Stark. He’s wearing an Italian suit, tailormade, blue-black fabric and champagne tie, somehow making it look good. Beside him is another man, just as recognizable since he hasn’t aged from the last photo taken at him since the Flood – Doctor Strange, white grey temples hair and eyes alarmingly aware of the world around him. He isn’t dressed in costume, but a blue suit and a thin black tie. Beside him is another man wearing an East-African formal attire, hair grey-sprung – and on the other side of the table sits Mr. Fantastic and Bruce Banner.  
In that split-second Steve realizes in sudden terror that this is the pieces left of the Illuminati.  
“Hello guests. My name is Steve and I will be your servant tonight. Feel free to ring the bell whenever you need me, and I will be sure to be at your assistance,” his mouth automatically rattles. He eyes the menus gathered in a bunk.   
Mr. Stark is glaring at him, T’Challa isn’t speaking up, Mr. Strange seems to have picked up Mr. Stark’s irritation and is now looking up and down at him as if he knows (Steve knows that’s how he makes people nervous), Mr. Fantastic is assessing the table because he doesn’t understand the silence.  
“Hello Steve,” it ends up being Bruce who carefully addresses him. “We’ll have – “  
Steve regrets not bringing his pad. He usually doesn’t because, well, the memory thing but now it’s just another thing for Mr. Stark to latch upon. He nods when they’re done, picks up some empty plates before he dumps the plates in the sink and writes down the complicated order. He brings back the drinks – the room quickly turning very quiet as he knocks before he enters.  
He is outside, cleaning tables from the last customers upstairs, when there’s a shout from the corner booth. Steve is confused because it’s not Florenca screaming. Another shout follows and Steve realizes that the couple is fighting. He goes to the booth and softly knocks. “Is there a problem, Sir?” he asks, but he has already located the little pool of puke, and the open Bailey bottle resting beside the children cup. Florenca looks pale and she is holding her stomach.   
“Yes, she threw up, because this insane woman fed her too much Bailey,” the father complains and Steve can’t believe his own ears – yes, old people talked about having poured a finger of scotch or rum into baby bottles, but this?  
“As if you even tried to stop me, you don’t even know any better,” the woman argues back in Spanish and the man opens up his mouth to answer back like rabid fire, when Steve coughs loudly.   
“I’ve just cleaned some tables on the balcony,” he says. “Perhaps it’d be more preferable while I take care of the…?”  
“Make sure to bring drinks,” the woman nods, tugging Florenca onto her legs while she starts making a list, Steve can hear, she has been saying many times before. The man interrupts her list because he wanted 3 and a half inches of vodka in his fresh-pressed apricot juice. In the middle of the argument Florenca gives up and places herself on the floor, deciding to take a nap.  
Before the woman starts shouting, Steve gently approaches: “I can clean her up and give her some water and bring her out right away.”  
The woman hesitates, frowning, but then the man tsk’s and the mother gets pissed off. Steve picks up the girl, she starts crying, reaching out for her parents and Steve carries her out in the back, finding his phone. Two-year olds are horrible when angry, but they at least know how to tell you what they want. It takes three very loud minutes for him to find the show she likes, before walking back inside and placing her on a table, while drying her mouth, make her spit out mouth wash and get lots of water in. He takes her peeing and has just finished cleaning the floor from puke, when the bartender is done with the couple’s drinks. Steve carries the plate out, only to find out that the couple’s mood has turned brightly upwards. He brings the blankets back up, because it looks like they’re getting in the mood and the restaurant won’t be closing for a while. The food finishes and Steve loads his arms with the warm plates. He hesitates.   
He isn’t working with his real last name, but Mr. Stark knows who he is. If Steve gets caught spying on them, his life will be crashing.  
But.  
It’s the Illuminati. His knowledge originates from rumors and weird obviously planned strategies throughout history; it was actually Bruce who had confirmed it and told Captain America a little bit about it, something about how they had kind of sneaked up and talked things over in advance to try avoiding major crises. They were all brilliant minds. Steve knows that the Illuminati have something to do with how Bruce suddenly disappeared in 1994 and returned very, very angry. But why is Bruce in there then? Some kind of compromise?   
Or maybe, just for old time’s sake? ‘Remember that time where everyone trusted us?’  
Captain America wins.   
Steve wraps the microphone in tinfoil and expertly melts it into a pea and lays it in the bucket with ice and champagne. He forces his body to relax as he puts the champagne on the table and brings in the dishes of food. Every time he enters they become all silent and Steve is getting sure that this isn’t something unimportant. He just wishes they could fake some small talk because the silence is getting really uncomfortable and very awkward.  
Steve goes outside to check on the parents and then realizes… that they… are gone.  
Florenca has become bored of the videos and is now examining the folding menus. She looks tired.  
2 AM and the chefs has closed the kitchen and most tables are cleaned and empty. The bartender is lazily doing cleanup. The glass bell has not yet rung. No one has been shouting.   
3 AM and the couple finally calls. They sound relaxed and Steve knows what they have been up to. His jaw tightens and he sits by the table to play on his phone and eat the leftovers from the kitchen. Half an hour later, Steve sends home the kitchen assistant – he would take care of the last couple of plates.   
The bell once again rings and Steve is honestly so pissed off at this point that he isn’t even nervous. So what if he bugged them, there are more serious issues out there, such as that freaking couple leaving their kid at a restaurant – sure, the restaurant is driven by regulars and a good reputation. But still. It’s just such a shit thing to do.  
“Please do compliment the chef on the fish, Steve,” Mr. Stark says.  
“I will make sure he gets the message, Sir,” Steve replies.   
And then Florenca starts crying. The other waiters have left, so nothing stops her tiny feet running around, calling his name. He hurriedly gathers together the plates and is leaving the gold marble flooring room, when she is running right into his legs. He doesn’t waver, picks her up with one hand and damning the universe for only giving women the round hips they carry around kids with so naturally.  
She is playing with soap bubbles when the couple finally arrives and Steve is doing breathing exercises, because no kids should be with some freaking teenager waiter 3 am. Kids should be in their fucking bed at night.   
“Well, Steve,” the woman smiles while they’re paying the bill. She is leaning over the bar, swaying, quite drunk. “Want to go home with us and put Florenca to bed?”  
“No thank you, M’am,” he replies, quickly glancing at the husband who responds with a leer.   
“Come on,” he said, nodding over his shoulder towards his car. “It will be fun. You’ll get a great tip.”  
“Red light, Sir.”  
“He is so cold,” the woman whines in Spanish.  
“He probably doesn’t realize who we are,” the man replies, still smiling at Steve.   
Steve’s face snaps up. “Next time you feed a two year old alcohol and leaving her to fuck at the hotel across us, I’m calling Child Services. Would you like your receipt?”  
Mr. Arango is opening his mouth with flaring eyes when someone snickers and then there is the loud sound of laughter. Steve turns his head and Bruce is laughing his heart out while Mr. Stark is chuckling into his hand with closed eyes.   
The older generation would probably not put up with being laughed at. But Mr. Arango has got more tenacity than that, so he laughs too and his wife is grinning forcedly with all of her teeth showing. Steve isn’t so stupid that he doesn’t know Mr. Arango will be looking for revenge.  
Meanwhile, he gives Steve $300 in tip and leaves.   
“And there you see why I’m only a substitute,” Steve comments and turns to them. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”  
“Will I get slammed for it?” Dr. Banner asks.  
“No,” Steve replies. He knows Banner, has talked to him plenty of times as Captain America and isn’t scared of him. He lets a smile take over his face. “I meant it, was there anything else?”  
“No,” Mr. Stark remarks. “I’m just paying the bill, the others have already left.”  
Steve frowns before it dawns on him. “Right. Magic and superhero stuff.”  
“You managed to sound so sophisticated while you presented the menu, where did that go?”  
“I like him, I don’t know what your problem is,” Bruce says, obviously in a good mood.  
“Do not save yourself on my account, Dr. Banner, I know you’re about to give me the shovel talk.” He brings up their table, it’s not hard to find since it’s the only one. They pay the check and Steve sends them on their way.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve often thinks of better versions of himself.

Steve doesn’t really have time for anything the next five days. There are classes and the student council and work fills out most evenings and nights. But it’s not the same as before with that subtle yet constant impatient anticipation for the worst. Not the worst, but something bad had happened and Steve feels like he can relax a bit. The parade went to shit, the people is back to being scared of the government, who says the Avengers are to blame, the superheroes are on every front page because where the Hell had they been? Things aren’t at the worst, but they are worse than before and Steve oddly feels like the world is a little more in balance.

He is talking to Tony every day now. Usually when Tony has finished rehab or in Steve’s work breaks. His boyfriend (???) is very understanding about his schedule and has unwillingly admitted that he’s building up his relationship with his father again. Steve is happy about that; there’s no use in Tony losing his family in this. Sure, Howard Stark built the Sentinels and is an official proponent of Registration; but that was a long time ago and things have changed. And it’s not like he’s been an evil inventor all of these years; he’s spent good time and a considerable large amount of money improving hospital equipment and brought in cheaper, greener transportation in all of New York; not to talk about the arc reactor technology. He has refused to make an army of Terminator Sentinels. He gave the Avengers some positive PR, which is always a bonus. He has stopped being a threat to the resistance and that’s good, Steve refuses to underestimate how much damage this man could do if he wanted, but…

Thing is, the government has a roster of superhumans, ready to take the Sentinel’s place. Mr. Stark is no longer a threat, but it doesn’t really impact the game that much, since he has never really been that harmful to begin with. And Steve doesn’t want Mr. Stark to be publicly resistant towards the government, like he’s starting to be and gather negative attention from the immoral sort of people. Then better to keep up the façade; Steve knows Mr. Stark’s hell bent on making everyone responsible pay on the expense of his son.

Steve is training with Fury every morning before school, which – with the rest of his schedule - practically cuts off time from the Avengers. Well, except for the twins’ birthday they celebrated the 5th. In the breaks they go over their failsafe if more dangerous Sentinels enter the market. They’re also talking with the mutant network in Canada to effectively protect and cut off Reed’s advances at finding his wife. It’s only when Saturday arrives, that the elastic man trusts the letter’s authenticity and stops looking. Which is really nice because Steve is starting to panic and they’re running out of ways to get the scientist distracted.

So Reed disappears in his lab and Ben goes back to his roots while the Torch is frequently crossing boarders. None of the Fantastic Four seem overall concerned with poking their head into the resistance’s business, so Steve stuffs their affairs into a box and pushes it out of his view.

Meanwhile, the government is getting very agitated with the failure of their project and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that H.A.M.M.E.R. will be brewing something up very soon.

And then there is the issue with the Illuminati meeting up. Steve doesn’t know if they even ever disbanded or if they ever even really existed. All of his knowledge about the group is already quite outdated and unreliable. Maybe they just wanted to talk to Bruce Banner, make amendments or gain information about the Hulk’s space travel. Maybe they just met up for old time’s sake.

Yeah, right.

It frustrates him beyond reason that he doesn’t know what the Illuminati is up to, which has driven him to hours of trying to cut up the melted tinfoil without ruining the microphone – god he had been such an idiot to do that, but it had seemed like the best option at the time, since the tinfoil would block (most) electric signals. And the Illuminati hadn’t caught him or at least said anything yet, so it must have worked. Maybe the powerful men are getting sloppy. Or maybe this is all a trap and Steve is being set up.

His thigh wound heals slower than usual because of the combat training. He retrieves the microphone, but the case is damaged but not un-savable and Steve has to send it Iron Man’s way, before they can access the recording. He doesn’t like the thought of Iron Man holding physical evidence of his treachery, but the computer man assures him that all his work is under heavy security and surveillance, Iron Man could corrupt anyway.

So Steve does his thesis and volunteers as the transfer students’ tutor. The weekend passes, his only chance to see Tony passing with it and once again he is in the routine of school and work.

Suddenly, it’s _that_ day.

It’s ridiculous. He wakes up one morning and checks the clock and it’s pure image of the combination of certain numbers, which soaks him with acid antiseptics. He looses sensation in his hands and darks spots slowly spots his vision.

When he blinks awake again, it’s because of the sound of birds chirping.

Sam is still sleeping on the mattress. Steve crawls out of his bed and goes into the bathroom to take a shower – he is so horrified by the thought of another hallucination that he covers up the mirror. For the first time the cold water rushing loudly from the showerhead bothers him. The others are starting to wake up and frightened by the mere thought of interacting with people, Steve leaves the apartment. Today it is one year ago. One year ago It happened.    

There is a fact Steve realizes that day, really realizes, as he leans into the tomb without a name on it in a private garden, a graveyard Steve himself made a year ago: If he hadn’t been born, Bucky wouldn’t have been killed that day.

\----

It won’t stop hurting.

\----

Steve often thinks of better versions of himself.

A person who doesn’t feel like he is getting sealed shut when he draws; a passion he once liked so much because it gained him release, a way to express himself. But today that skill and hobby isn’t about expression, it’s the beginning of a question he can’t bear to answer, a door connected to memories hitting him repeatedly until he breaks open. A person who’s still somebody even without the uniform. A version of himself, who is not so afraid and tormented by the thought of loss, that he sometimes wishes his roommates never moved in and became something else, something like family. A wholesome _adult_ who doesn’t swear so much and had morning runs and would go to the Grand Canyon in Bucky’s honor, because that’s a place he always wanted to see. A person who would respect Bucky’s memory instead of letting the superhuman become both the monster and the skeleton in Steve’s closet. Someone, who is not waiting for a fucking punch line. Isn’t feeling like he’s fake and a liar when he goes to school, who dares to have friends who aren’t allies, who doesn’t sometimes hope that the Sentinel would just snap his neck already. Steven Grant Rogers, a person who doesn’t turn tail and run when his past starts to catch up with him. Who tries, who adapts, who takes steps, who recovers, who eventually heals. Scars should fade, but his hands have only ended up as claws, fingers curled and nerves pulled too tight to function, to draw. His scarred palms seem to be the only thing he sees.

A person, whose boyfriend doesn’t call his roommates when Steve hasn’t picked up his phone after eight hours, who doesn’t make his friends do a search party. Who isn’t a pile of crumbled pillars, of shattered strength broken by a particular fucking day of the year.  A person who takes his body _back_ from the graveyard, who doesn’t get dragged into a car seat, who doesn’t make his friend cry, who’s stronger than this and whom others can go to because they know he won’t shut them down.

But he is that person. And Pietro _does_ cry. And his boyfriend does miss his doctor’s appointment.  And Steve _is_ weak.

When he wakes up the next morning, it’s like getting pulled out of a noisy battlefield, wakening from fire and blood, a still morning after a night full of grenades and bombshells and Bucky dying in his arms over and over again. Waking up from a nightmare where the screaming just won’t stop, where there is no safe place he can run to and he is so tired, so, so tired of repeating this, reliving that day.

His throat feels rough and dry. He clears it and twists and realizes there’s an IV in his arm.

He turns his head and…

Bruce is sitting on a chair across him. He smiles hesitantly, his eyes blurred. “Woah, don’t move too much, you’ve got an IV in.”

Steve looks at it, frowning and then lays back. “I don’t need an IV,” he states hoarsely.

“It’s for the dehydration,” Dr. Banner explains. Steve sits up and scratches his head; his throat does feel dry. He recognizes Bruce’s clinic around him.

Banner takes a deep breath. “Steve. Listen to me.”

And that’s what sets Steve off, the tone of voice Banner has adopted. He doesn’t want to hear it. He pulls out the IV, a sharp pinch of pain and couple of drops of blood, before he gets up.

“You _can_ move on,” Bruce keeps going anyway, looking at Steve pulling on his shoes. “You’re _allowed_ to.”

Steve finds his hoodie folded on the table. “If you had been there, then you’d known that’s not true.” He pulls it on. It smells like sweat and dirt. “Where’s Tony?”

“He’s sleeping in the guest room – no, Steve, don’t go to him when you’re like this.”

“Leave me alone, I can’t let it happen to him too,” Steve shouts and smacks open the door.

“You shouldn’t make decisions while you’re in this state!” he hears Bruce shout. “Steve!”

Steve is opening up all the doors and hears another being opened at the end of the hall. “Tony!”

“I’m here.”

The voice is behind him and he flies around, feeling erratic and in attack mode, until he sees Tony’s eyes. They’re dim, as if he knows what’s going to happen. Or maybe he saw it coming all along. Steve would bet that Tony figured it out, what state Steve came in. Tony’s a genius after all and he has already sniffed up Steve’s purpose, his drive. And maybe that’s why Tony’s eyes are bleeding, maybe because he has already figured out that good things don’t last. And still, those eyes makes Steve wonder if Tony knows that loving Tony had been one of the few things Steve had felt really good at, that loving Tony had been a gift to Steve. He reaches out his hand, lightly cupping it around Tony’s shoulder, feeling his own face crumble and his mouth open. For the first time in a long time, he feels his eyes get wet. “I’m sorry,” he whispers and he has to inhale deeply to go on. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Tony nods jerkily, his face blank.

It’s Steve who had scolded Tony for not reserving that seat at Tony’s side for him and this is what Steve gives in return. “We can’t do this anymore.”

Tony blinks and closes his eyes, his chin turned down. Then he opens his eyes and they get steel-hard and intense. “Steve, whatever happened is not going to happen to me, I promise you,” he says with such determination that Steve almost believes him.

“Ask me,” he sinks. “Ask me if I’m a spy.”

“I don’t need to know, Steve I know what crowd you’re hanging out with – “

“Ask me!” Steve shouts.

Tony shakes his head. “Are you a spy?”

“Yes,” Steve replies immediately. “And I never played football and I don’t play on my phone all the time and I swear that’s the only outright lies I’ve ever told you.“

He glances behind Steve and Steve fleetingly looks around and sees Bruce’s stone figure.

“Relax,” Steve shakily smiles. “Everyone knows Bruce’s in the resistance, he’s compromised the whole surveillance program on this floor.”

Tony’s shoulders slumps. “It changes nothing for me, Steve.“

“Not when everything you tell me about your family, everything I see in your Mansion, goes straight to Captain America and I can’t do this to you anymore, I can’t…”

Tony is staring at him, his mouth a thin line.

“You deserve better, Tony.” His voice breaks. Captain America, who the Hell is he kidding. He’s just a helpless, tiny boy, like he has always been, waiting for Bucky to come save him. “Someone who isn’t me.”

Tony’s eyes flare up. “I don’t want someone who isn’t you,” he shouts.

“It’s for your own good,” Steve tries to finish.

“I’ve been controlled my whole life by people who wanted ‘my own good’, don’t do that to me, Rogers!”

“Dammit Tony, I can’t be selfish here!” Steve says.

“You _are_ selfish, you _are_ being a coward!”

“Let me be a coward, as long as you’re safe,” Steve bites. “You want to protect your father. You said you couldn’t invite someone harmful into your life. You don’t hurt the one you _love_ , Tony. And you’re the one who wanted me to promise that nothing would happen to him if I stayed. And I can’t promise that, so I guess I have to leave.”

Tony opens his mouth but nothing comes out.

\----

As soon as he leaves Stark Tower, he is very aware that the Avengers are immediately following his tail. He walks quickly, sensing more than feeling them at his back and Sam over his head.

When he arrives to Avengers quarters, the mirror in his bathroom has been taken down. His sketchbooks are gone. His bed’s mattress is on the floor in the living room along with Clint and Sam’s. The hammocks has been taken down and replaced with a cupboard. The four mattresses lock around his, like a shield of comfort from all evil, a bomb shelter protecting him just tonight. They don’t say anything. The TV is turned on like always. Clint makes chicken masala. Steve’s phone is on silent mode and put away.

He closes his eyes.

He doesn’t dream.

\----

Next morning he feels better. It’s Sunday, the resting day and they watch _Sesame Street_ rerunsinstead of the news. Steve eats the masala straight from the pot when no one is looking and agrees to pour out the old coffee. Evening time, Wanda switches the channel to the news and Clint starts to nag him about tea. By the time of evening he can meet their eyes again without feeling like they see everything.

It’s alright if he lets them come in. He has fought with these people. They’re survivors. They chose this life.

\----

Monday morning and Steve is not ready to go to school.

That’s a feeling he isn’t used to. He has rested, he has eaten and all his injuries have healed, so why the Hell isn’t he ready for school?

Easy peasy question: Tony is taking up his classes Tuesday. Not today, sure, but walking into school would make confrontation tomorrow real. Well, not _exactly_ tomorrow, since Steve has Tony’s classes Thursday. But they’re both at school Tuesday, and might run into each other. Or maybe they wouldn’t. That’d be so much worse.

He doesn’t regret his decision, being with Tony had been wrong of him, but he feels like he messed up big time.

So, school. Steve practically sneaks out of the metro station and feels an even more extreme sense of paranoia than when he had first time dressed up as Captain America and gone to school Monday as if nothing happened. The days are short, so it’s still dark and Steve likes to arrive at school a bit early so he can read up in the library and maybe mess with the computers’ tracing algorithms a bit. His eyes are glued to the sidewalk, counting them, until he gets sidetracked and starts to count them again. Somewhere he hears the low purr of a car rolling up beside him. His instincts flaring up to attention, he turns around and narrows his eyes at the discrete yet classy black BMW.

A hand with an XXL cup of coffee is stuck out. Steve can smell the beans, the pure black liquid. His mouth salivates, rations at home not allowing him to brew a new pot until tomorrow. “You’re not fooling me into the car with coffee, Tony,” Steve proclaims, just to make his force of will sound strong and official. If it comes out slightly hysterical, Steve ignores it.

Tony tips his head out. He is wearing wine-colored sunglasses and Steve didn’t notice it yesterday, but his skin has retrieved color throughout recovery and his hair has been cut. It’s artfully messy. The bastard smiles as if nothing wrong is happening.

“Come on, Steve, this is neutral ground,” he calls out, lovingly and lightweight. “We can still be friends, right?”

He hates how hot his skin immediately gets, how something mournful and longing calls out for Tony, how Steve would crack open his brain for excuses to give it one more chance. He takes several steps forward and reaches out, and Tony lightly touches his fingers, before his bold, clever fingers braids into Steve’s. His hand is warm across Steve’s knuckles, and Steve feels something in him, something burning, sigh in relief.

Tony’s thumb is rubbing circles on Steve’s wrist. When Tony reaches out with his other hand, Steve almost bows his head to meet the caress.

He realizes that Tony has figured something out that Steve hasn’t accounted for.

They can’t be friends.

They’ll just do it again.

“You’re just so…” Steve mutters as he yanks back, the chauffeur lifting his brows above black sunglasses.

“And you’re a self-sacrificing idiot,” Tony shoots right back, fierceness stinging right through his earlier nonchalance. “I’m not going to play fucking _Romeo & Juliet_ with you!”

“This isn’t two opposing families, this is the goddamn Palestine-Israeli conflict, you jerk!”

“Get in the car!” Tony snaps.

“No!”

“Get in or I’ll make Happy – “

“Happy?” Steve turns his eyes at the chauffeur. He’s a few years younger than Mrs. Hogan, even though she does wear her age better. He’s not nearly as well-trimmed and taken care of, his gray stained brown-reddish hair ruffled and the mint pastels on the glove compartment shows that he probably slept in the car, lips dry and thinning as they speak –

“Turn that off!” Tony shouts.

Steve blinks and forces his eyes away. He starts to stomp away, which only makes Happy drive faster.

“You know, I never said I was against the resistance,” Tony begins again, smoother, calmer.

“Of course you’re not,” Steve snorts. “It’d be stupid to not be on your own side.”

“Say that to Cassandra Lang,” Tony counters.

“Her view is kind of colored, don’t you think?” Steve replies. “She kinda grew up on a military base. Her powers are beneficial.”

“Now, she just knows how things used to be before Registration. Things were hard, Steve, civilian casualties mounted at 600 with Stamford, not to talk about Secret Invasion.”

“Right, so let’s turn into North Korea instead, that’s so much better.”

“What happened to your _person_ isn’t going to happen to everybody, Steve.”

Steve waves his hand and enters the school. He’s not interested in that kind of compromise.

\-----

Steve bullies Iron Man online and slowly, almost sluggishly, a clean list of the Negative Zone prisoners is transferred unto his account. He checks the list, stumbles on a name and then immediately contacts Fury.

-        _What is it, son._

-        _Don’t call me that. Iron Man has decrypted the Negative Zone’s list of prisoners._

-        _Alright._

-        _What do you want me to do with it?_

-        _Oh, now you’re asking_ my _opinion?_

-        _This is a big deal, Fury. I see a lot of old S.H.I.E.L.D.-agents on the list._

-        _You’re worrying about their family’s safety. Why? The government already knows about the family members of the Registered. They’ve had plenty of times to do what they wanted._

-        _As you say, there is not much we can do for them right now. Rather I’m worried about the mob. I don’t want this to end up as guerilla war._

-        _Too many minor players have gained power over the years, Captain, to think it won’t end as a guerilla war is naive. You can’t work with greedy people who aren’t interested in a better world._

-        _I’m working with you, aren’t I?_

-        _Where the Hell did that come from?_

-        _Do you think I’m that dumb? You’re only interested in getting your agency back._

-        _I do it to protect people._

-        _Look around, Nick. Have the people ever been safer than now?_

-        _Are you saying that you don’t trust me?_

-        _You’re the naïve one if you think I ever did._

-        _Who the Hell has been pissing on your apple pie? I won’t stab you in the back, if that’s what you’re implying._

-        _It’s not your honor I doubt, Fury._

Steve disconnects in a prissy mood.

-        _Captain America?_

-        _Yes. Who am I speaking with?_

-        _You’re speaking with Storm._

-        _Iron Man has sent me the complete list of prisoners in the Negative Zone._

-        _Is it authentic?_

-        _I retrieved it myself and I trust Iron Man._

-        _If you’re sure. Why did you message us, Captain?_

-        _I wanted to know what the X-men wanted to do with the list._

-        _Well, we want a copy of course._

-        _What about the public?_

-        _We haven’t considered that. You usually handle the PR, Cap._

-        _I wasn’t aware that I did that too much?_

-        _We don’t mind. You’re doing a great job. The X-men have a bad history with the public, as you know._

-        _So you, what, don’t want to have a say in this?_

There’s a break of about twenty minutes.

-        _You’re controlling things fine._

Steve gets so irritated by this … _disregard_ that he makes Storm get Kitty Pryde on the phone. She’s got some idea what to give away to the public and she agrees to weigh to situation with him. It’s nicer that way, and she brings up helpful arguments and insightful comments.

Besides that, Steve uses pretty much the rest of the day coming down on people. That day he pulls four second year students aside and gives them a scolding for bullying some first years. He snaps at his professor because he doesn’t clean the desk before he goes and gets in a fight with some second years because they’re sharing cigarettes in the no smoking zone. By the end of his school day he is so cross that he goes to a coffee shop to spill money on the stupid, expensive coffee Tony had bought for him today, because Steve could get coffee if he wanted by _himself thank you_ , only to snap “Can’t you see she has an infected wrist?!” at a woman when she huffs about the slow service. He even goes as far as chasing some kids away from a homeless man and yell at a young man on the train for not giving his seat up for a pregnant woman.

It’s not like he wouldn’t normally do all of these things, but Mother Maria knows that he would normally never be such a brute about it. He knows that people usually only obeys him because he’s big and might use physical force, and that’s why he thinks it’s important to be polite about it, to show that he isn’t a bully and people don’t have to go around being scared of him.

He writes Iron Man again, who suddenly blows up and starts going off about how he has a fucking life too and he’s got his own problems to fix, and that he _is_ fucking working on that fucking prison security and it’d be easier if Captain America would get him Mr. Fantastic’s fucking blueprints instead of throwing his weight around, Jesus Freaking Christ. Steve totally forgets that he just wanted some code advice and throws himself headfirst into an argument because all of them had a fucking life. Iron Man wants to know why he hadn’t been informed that Dr. Banner is a mole and Steve says that he isn’t a fucking mole, he just helps fugitives and that Mr. Stark, who is practically housing Banner, probably knows and isn’t doing anything about it, because hey, better have a compliant Banner than attack the Hulk and how the Hell does Iron Man know that Bruce Banner is in the grey anyway? But Iron Man picks the wrong words out of Steve’s mouth and explodes that Banner would never become the Hulk unless he needed to defend himself, and Steve says that “or, you know, he doesn’t want to be kicked off Earth by the Illuminati again” and Iron Man replies “The Illuminati?” and Steve has no reason to not tell him about the secret council, now missing members since Namor and any other Atlantean were infected with the virus, how Black Bolt had clouded the whole USA with Terrigen Mists, outed his people, grabbed them and scrammed for the moon, how Hank McCoy had left after the Mutant Registration Act had been passed on and how T’Challa had remained neutral, only agreed to aid H.A.M.M.E.R. and the police force with weapons when the prisons and hero camps were filled with non-compliant inhabitants.

-        _I never knew this_ , Iron Man writes.

-        _You’re a master hacker, I just assumed you’d take the knowledge you wanted._

-        _I would have taken it. If I was looking._

-        _Which reminds me of why I contacted you. One of my sources tells me that the rest of the members were gathered a couple of days ago with Bruce Banner._

-        _One of your sources, you say._

-        _Yes._

-        _Is he reliable?_

-        _Who says it’s a he?_

-        _Right. But is he?_

-        _Yes. I trust him very much._

-        _Why?_

-        _I’m writing to you about the meeting, Iron Man, not about the people who help me._

-        _You’re saying he does it voluntarily?_

-        _Is there something you want to ask me, Iron Man?_

-        _I want to ask you face to face. I want you to do me a favor._

-        _Face to face…_ Now Steve is just downright suspicious. – _Why?_

-        _It’s important to me. Code 634-009-510 Blue Room. There, satisfied?_

-        _It’s gonna be on my conditions._

-        _What, you **still** think I’m not me?_

-        _You went offline for a long while, Iron Man._

-        _As I said before, you’re a paranoid bastard._

_\----_

Steve does not make things easy. First he asks Iron Man to show up in Jersey City, then decides to change location twenty minutes before the time of meeting to the Theater District in New Manhattan. Five minutes late he makes Iron Man grab a cab to Lincoln Square, before making him go to the most secluded part of Hell’s Kitchen. Steve leads the thin, hooded figure into a mall, before directing him into the parking basement, gets him lost on the different floors and finally expecting him in the control room.

Captain America is sitting on the control panel, an electronic gating between the door and him. If this is a trap, he’d at least have time.

The metal door slams open and Steve almost smiles, because if this is Iron Man, he’d be more pissed than ever.

The figure makes sure that the door is locked, before he spins around and rips off his hood.

Everything is still.

Tony is looking up at him with defiant, fiery eyes, his face damp with sweat and rain. “You fucking asshole,” he greets Steve, who’s still staring at him with wide eyes. “I knew you were paranoid, but that was just fucking mean, I’d bet none of the other Avengers had to do that.”

Steve can’t talk. _Of course_. OF COURSE. The neurochips at the same time Iron Man went offline, being an “insider” and “too known to disappear”, his brain being a supercomputer, his defensiveness of Dr. Banner, and his almost intimate knowledge of the other superheroes. Iron Man is the part of Tony that _resisted_.

“What, don’t tell me that you’re surprised,” Tony rolls his eyes. “You’re a smart boy, Caps Lock, I’m surprised you didn’t connect ‘engineer genius’ with ‘supercomputer mind’ a long time ago.”

It’d be so much like Tony to be a major member of the resistance, an Avenger, in plain sight of the public.

“I want you to prove that you’re Iron Man,” Captain America speaks while Steve’s brain is still frozen. “And no, I didn’t make the other Avengers prove themselves, since their powers are pretty obvious.”

Tony quirks a brow and eyes the control center Steve is sitting on. Then they do something Steve has never seen before; they glaze over, the sclera and iris turning completely black.

The machinery spouts and stops.

Slowly Tony walks out onto the harmless grating. “It’s called Extremis, a bioelectronics package, fitted into a few billion graphic nanotubes and suspended in carrier fluid. It only required one single injection to work. Invented by a scientist called Maya Hanson, you’ve probably heard her name mentioned somewhere. Extremis hacks the body’s repair center – the part of the brain that keeps a complete blueprint. When we’re injured, we refer to that part of the brain to heal properly.”

Steve sways and Tony stops in front of the control center. His eyes turn completely black again and the grating turns on again.

Somewhere in the back of Steve’s head, he is aware that Tony is locking them both in.

“Extremis rewrites your repair center. In the first stage, the entire body essentially becomes an open wound,” Tony explains and Steve hopes that somewhere in his brain, he’s recording. “The human blueprint is exchanged with Extremis’. The brain is being told that its body is wrong. Extremis protocol dictates that the body be put on life support and intravenously fed nutrients at this point. For the next two or three days, the person will remain unconscious within a cocoon of scabs. Extremis uses the nutrients and body mass to build new organs, better ones. Pretty gross, right?” He scratches his bangs, his fingers drifting down to the neurochips. “I was born with a huge hole in my heart. I wouldn’t make it to ten years old. My mother funded the project.”

Steve’s eyes automatically drift down to Tony’s chest.

“The first version was dangerous and immediately put down,” Tony continues. “You became superhuman, like really superhuman. Superhuman strength, healing, durability, speed and stamina. And oh, they also breathed fire, had claws and zapped stuff. Like a lot.”

“You had another version?”

“Yes. You need to remember this was four years after Registration passed; my mother wanted me to have a chance to live a normal life. So she modified it in a way which meant that nobody could find it if they tested me, but also in a way that she knew I could survive and outsmart the system if I was taken into custody. Voila, supercomputer.”

“Why would she…” ‘Hand you a weapon’. “Do that. If she wanted you to have a normal life, why did she give you powers?”

“She never supported Registration, Cap.”

“What happened to her?”

Tony looks down. “After she had injected me and her version proofed to be sustainable, she destroyed all the vials. Three days later her plane back to New York crashed. My father has been using years chasing down the killers.”

Steve slumps. He’d always known there had to be a story… and all of this just fits so tragically well. “I’m sorry, Iron Man.”

Tony’s eyes turn to steel again, an obstinate expression Steve can easily identify as the one he’s always imagined Iron Man would wear. “I am too.”

Steve jumps down from the control station. “Can I hug you?”

“You’re not…” The hardness turns to anxious anticipation. “I don’t know. I thought you wouldn’t want to work with the son of the Sentinel inventor?”

“You’re not your father,” Steve reminds him before he pulls Tony in, the boy awkwardly dangling as Steve wraps his arms around his back. “Good to finally meet you.”

“And you too. Whenever you decide to pull of that bandana and stop making me feel all bare here.” He sniffs at Steve’s neck. “Hm. You smell nice.”

“Thank you,” Steve smiles.

“You smell like…” Tony freezes and sharply pulls back, his eyes drifting up to the slit between Steve’s helmet and his bandana where Steve’s eyes are showing. Tony’s eyes widen.

“Make us even then, Iron Man,” Steve breathes but Tony is already pulling off the bandana.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, that was my undramatic solution of the identity porn. Hope you liked it!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Steve realizes that the hole had been Tony-shaped all along. Also, porn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice change of rating!

For a period of time, which could span from a couple of seconds to whole minutes, they just stare at each other and Steve is immensely afraid to say anything. Tony slowly pulls back and Steve casts a haunted look around, while putting his bandana back in place.

“I suppose this answers your question about my source?” he asks, his shoulders tense as he analyzes Tony’s face.

Tony opens his mouth, closes his eyes and then finally shakes his head. “Of course,” he breathes. “ _Of course_.”

Offended Steve huffs. “What ‘Of course’. I was brilliant at keeping my cover.”

“With all your ‘jobs’? Your false addresses? I thought you were underneath the X-men’s protection because you were a mutant. That’s why you never invited me to your place, your roommates were mutants too,” Tony explains.

“And what would my power be?” Steve rolls his eyes.

“Muscles you don’t have to engage in regular exercise to maintain?”

Steve is about to answer when something dawns on him. “You blocked my phone!”

“I did not,” Tony denies, affronted.

“You totally did!”

“Okay, maybe a little bit. But seriously, you would have done too, that thing was driving me nuts.”

“Can’t believe everyone in your house was going to kill me for dating _another Avenger_.”

“Hey, you turned out to be a pretty huge fucking threat!”

“Captain America is not a threat,” Steve replies with scorn. “I’m a nice guy. Or, well. I could do things a lot worse.”

Tony rolls his eyes, dryly adding: “The Fantastic Four has broken up because of you.”

“That was their decision to make,” Steve defends, but winces since that thought had occurred to him.

Tony looks skeptic and before he could continue his, in no doubt, thorough argument, Steve breaks in: “Hey, you want to come meet rest of the team?”

“Erh.” Tony’s sure posture falters and Steve realizes that they had been conversing like Iron Man and Captain America usually do. “I don’t think that’s a wise idea, Steve.”

Steve tips his head. “Call me Cap when I’m wearing costume, Tony.”

“Right,” Tony nods, making the face where his eyes squint and his mouth pulls to side, which usually means that he is trying to convey something in normal-people speak. “I mean. Thinking about it, I met, like, two of them when you went missing? This guy called Clint and the other one… wait. Was that Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch? They weren’t especially...”

“It’s gonna be fine. Most of them became less angry with your father when he took the bullet for Franklin. It was a very noble thing for him to do. Besides, you’ve saved all of our asses at least ten times now.”

“But publicly I’m still gonna support Registration.”

“We all support Registration publicly, Tony, that’s why our identities are secret,” Steve counters, consciously talking past Tony’s point. He knows that Tony isn’t just a supporter – he’s a spotlight representative.

“I don’t know,” Tony frowns. “I only came today because I thought Captain America was forcing information out of Steve because he happened to be in a relationship with me and I thought that was wrong… but now I get it when you said that you couldn’t help it.”

Steve pulls him in again and Tony lets himself. “It’s okay if you want this to remain a secret. Falcon didn’t come out to the team until recently.”

Tony nods, still frowning, and leans his forehead into Steve’s shoulder. “But… how did you end up like this, St..Cap? I’ve seen you in combat. You’re obviously not … normal.”

As always the question makes something in Steve turn into stone, but he pushes it aside. Tony had willingly told him everything and Steve owed him the same. “I… it was an accident. I’m not superhuman, I don’t have any powers – everything about me was just enhanced. Better head, better body. That’s why I pass the metahuman tests, I’m practically just a better athlete.”

“Who can destroy Sentinels?” Tony adds doubtfully.

Steve shrugs, nuzzling his nose through the bandana into Tony’s hair. “Now, they’re not as hardcore as your father could make them.”

“True.” Tony sighs. “Does this mean… we can be together?”

He pulls back as he asks and Steve looks down at him, holding his breath. Suddenly nervous.

“Yes. If you still want to,” Steve says curtly.

The brunet gives him a sharp look and then looses with a smile. “Don’t worry, I never took a liking to the whole _Romeo & Juliet_ thing,” he assures.

“Don’t be crass,” Steve reprimands and kisses Tony’s nose through the bandana. “Anyway, we better get out of here, I’m pretty sure you can’t be out this late without someone tailing you.”

“Well, if I didn’t shake them off, I’m pretty sure you did.”

“Not for long,” Steve says, tilting his head and listening. There were a couple of mice in the venting, around four people getting into their cars on the floor upstairs. “Better not risk it. You sure you don’t want to come back to the clubhouse?”

“Clubhouse?”

“Something Falcon started calling it. It stuck. Clint is cooking tonight.”

“Is he good at that?”

“Without kidding the best food I’ve ever tasted. The restaurant your father was eating at has nothing on Clint.”

“Well… okay. If you say that it’s safe.”

\----

“I knew,” Wanda says with that eerie look in her eyes. “I had a vision about this two hours ago. I told Pietro too. He is getting groceries by the way.”

“Great, we’re gonna eat lemon moons for days,” Clint comments, before staring at Tony with his best stankface. Tony looks easy, relaxed, but Steve has learned to see the small signs of anxiety. “Does this mean you can get me a StarkPhone. Or something pert near?”

Before Tony can deflect, Steve turns to Wanda. “Since when do you get visions?”

The pajamas-clad girl shrugs. “It’s like with the hexs. The more rested I feel, the better I am at it.”

“Why is the water here so freaking cold?” Sam complains, just getting out of Steve’s room, his hair glittering with water pearls, but otherwise presentable and clothed. “Seriously, my balls are literally blue.”

“TMI, geez, Army guys,” Clint groans, Sam replying with the finger.

“You’re gonna fix the plumbing,” Pietro decides as he arrives, the door clicking shut and locked a second before he’s standing in the kitchen, putting away groceries. “Might be of some use around here then.” He almost grunts it. Steve doesn’t have any doubts that any resistance he might have had against Tony joining the team officially, had been brutally stumped down by Wanda long before Steve and Tony had even solved their own issues. Steve thinks putting order to things is a way Wanda deals with how she usually courses chaos.

“Who is making dinner?” said person wonders. “I’m feeling chop suey.”

“Whoops, I forgot the ingredients for that,” Pietro smugly lies. “I bought cheese Danish.”

“You had one job,” Wanda rolls her eyes. “Who turned off the TV?”

“I did,” Sam easily admits (clearly oblivious to how Wanda has made herself landlord), pouring up some milk and mixing it up with honey, before heating it.

“Why?” Wanda asks as if Sam’s a child. Steve gives it a week at most.

Sam takes loud gulps of the hot liquid and clears his throat. “Waste of mooga.”

“First rule,” Steve tells Tony, turning his head to find his boy a little dazed with all the activity. Steve could understand that, with the usual clean and still silence, which mostly dominated the Mansion. “Never turn off the TV. And when it’s on, preferably let it be on the news. Sam, please wait a minute for the milk to cool down.”

“Yes, mom,” Sam sighs. “You know, Clint, chop suey doesn’t sound that bad.”

“When did I become chef resident?” Clint complains, but doesn’t really look bothered. “Hey, you pig, I saw that jug of milk was empty, put it in the thrash and then please follow.”

“We also clean up after ourselves,” Steve sighs. “If we don’t, well. Clint sees everything.”

“I can sense like, twenty Stark prototypes in here,” Tony says, his head tilted as if he is listening.

Steve makes a face. Right. “Erh.”

“It’s okay,” Tony assures, turning his attention to Steve. “You stole them because they were dangerous and my father put them on a travel route where he knew they’d disappear. He’s still tied to old army contracts.”

“Oh.” Surprised, Steve lifts his brows. So, Mr. Stark has consciously made his prototypes disappear by manipulating the resistance force into stealing them. Which is pretty smart. Steve is a little relieved and a little aware that he needs to tighten up his game. “Seriously, Sam, don’t drink juice from the carton.”

“Why,” Sam grunts and then turns around, smirking. “You had this tongue in your mouth before, Steve.”

Tony turns his head at him while Steve narrows his eyes at Sam.

“Don’t worry,” Sam laughs, waving his hand at both of them. “It was way back in high school, when he was still tiny and able to get drunk and Peggy had just left the states.”

“Thank you for sharing that story with us, Sam,” Steve hisses, not that he regrets. Sam had had a wonderful mouth. But right now it’s far from Steve’s fond memories.

“I feel a sudden need to mark my territory,” Tony says out loud.

“No PDA’s,” Wanda groans. “Especially not in the morning.”

“I guess I will stick to messing with your phone,” Tony shrugs, making his best shit eating grin at Sam and Steve knows that Tony is going to fit right in.

That evening they sit and yell at the news people and throw popcorn at the screen.

“This is so depressing,” Tony complains. “Can’t we watch a movie instead?”

“Too bad I have the remote,” Pietro says.

“Too bad I don’t need a remote,” Tony mouths at him and the channel switches onto the movie _Rush Hour._

“Yeah, let’s watch a movie about racial stereotypes instead,” Wanda complains.

Tony flicks channels until they agree on watching _Earth_ on Discovery Channel _. “_ So,” Tony says, because the program isn’t exactly hard to follow, “you say you’re just a better athlete now, Steve, but I’ve seen the Captain carry pretty heavy things.”

“You should see him when he vacuums,” Clint tells him. “Nothing is in his way.”

“My weight is more like something I had in mind,” Tony drawls.

Clint shouts “EEEEEEW”, Pietro gags and Wanda giggles and Steve gets it. “Oh my god, Tony, _no_ ,” he warns.

“Innocent question,” Tony shrugs, unaffected. “I don’t know what conclusion your perverted human minds drew.”

Fit right in. In Tony’s own way.

\------

At the end of the evening, Tony is blinking very slowly at the television. The Avengers have gradually crawled their way unto the matrasses. Sam jerks a couple of times, as if he’s fighting or soaring, and Clint occasionally opens his eyes to stare blankly at the ceiling, something the Avengers only just noticed from the day he slept with the rest of them. Clint had apparently been using it to keep the other circus workers away from his stuff.  
"He's doing it again," Tony mutters for the third time that evening, hyperaware in all the laziness. "You sure he’s normal?"  
"Yeah," Steve mumbles in a sleepy voice, his back hallway melted into the cushions, Tony resting into his side. He feels warm and fuzzy and comfortable. "Or, well. Clint is Clint."  
"That sentence have throughout the evening started to make more and more sense," Tony snickers and then more serious: "Are you sure this is alright?"  
"What is?"  
"I don't know. Me being here."  
Steve puts his chin on the top of Tony's head and breathes the smell of his hair. There’re remains of a sandalwood shampoo, but mostly it’s the smell of sweat and popcorn butter. "What makes you say that?" Which is a genuine question. Despite Steve’s assurances, he hadn’t expected the clubhouse to be quite this accepting. Steve remembers how he had found these people; desperate, scared, paranoid, especially towards all things governmental.   
Tony halfheartedly shrugs, his breath a sigh against Steve’s skin. "I never got any 'welcome'."  
Steve closes his eyes and kisses Tony's head. "Because you were always with us."  
"Seriously, Rogers, do you write that shit down or is it just at the top of your head?" Sam grumbles.  
"Go to sleep, Wilson," Tony yawns and sure enough, Sam starts snoring two minutes later.  
Steve blinks his eyes open. He wants to keep living through this peaceful moment, keep breathing in this feeling of home. He thinks it has been a long time since he has had so few things to worry about.  
"Will this change things?" Tony sighs.  
"In what way?" Steve asks.  
"I don't know."  
"Well..." Steve sighs. "I think things will be easier. At least from my part. I can talk to you."  
Tony closes his eyes. "Sure. You don't have to worry about your boyfriend getting killed by a Sentinel."  
"That's true," Steve forces himself to verbally admit. "What about you? They put the neurochips in you because they knew you helped us."  
"They couldn't proof anything. I told you after the raid that they were only suspicious."  
"You were caught. You can't put your brain offline every time things turn for the worse."  
"It just means we have to do things better, smarter."  
"It’s gonna be an honor working with you, Iron Man."  
Tony squirms a bit, still tense. Steve rubs at a tight spot in his neck with a thumb and kisses his boyfriend on the forehead. "You can start with telling me what’s worrying you."   
While Tony gathers his words, Steve's hand starts to seek out the neurochips.  
"Stop that," Tony hisses and Steve pulls his hand away. "That’s the first thing. Stop touching them."  
Steve nods gingerly. "Sorry. They just... I don't know. You said you, uh, put your brain offline, so how much power do they have over you?"  
"They can't scan my brain for information," Tony repeats for the eight millionth time. "They can't stop its capabilities, hack it."  
"Okay... but..."  
"I know they're programmed to put me down. I tried my best to prevent the worst of it, so they can’t just press a button and crash my software, but... I'm not sure."  
‘Not sure’. That could mean a lot of things, but most of all it meant that they had to be very careful because nothing’s sure. "You're completely sure they can't use you as a... erh. Live feed? Or track you?"  
"Completely," Tony nods.  
"Okay." Steve looks at the sleeping Avengers and then treads out on thin ice. "I'm sorry. For ... leaving."  
Tony shrugs and tries to look nonchalant. "Well, it's starting to make sense to me. Why you couldn't do it. I'm surprised that Captain America even did it, with his morality standards."  
"I told you I loved you," Steve explains and tries not to let it bother him that Tony hasn't returned the words. "I'm not as strong as I would like to be. It was selfish of me to even begin."  
"Now I know you're Captain America," Tony giggles. "But does it mean...?" he starts in a more serious tone and when Steve just looks confused, he continues: "That you won't...? I mean, I'm still me. I'm still...". "You're an Avenger," Steve says slowly, hoping he is the right track. "I'm not dropping you off."  
Tony sighs. "Which reminds me, I can finally tell you this: The Stark Resilient computers I've invented and which is going on the market tomorrow morning are intractable. Can’t be traced and the standard government hacker will have a hard time stealing information. A little feature of mine I didn't bother to tell the manufacturers about."  
Steve's eyes widen. "So people can... just say what they want on the World Wide Web?"  
"Who the Hell still calls it the World Wide Web?"  
"Tony, that's amazing!"  
"Well, I am an amazing person," Tony smiles. "If what you say about my father's role in the Illuminati is true... It just certifies that business men's control on the world economy is just as important as a king's."

\----

He’s sinking again. Still slowly. Still so cold it feels like needles are penetrating him all over. Sunlight is thrown onto the distant water surface, throwing flicks of light into his eyes. He can see his hands, unmoving. They're small, small like they were once. An intense red is fading into the water. The blood looks like ink, rich and spilled. He isn't thinking about anything. At all.  
\----  
Steve grunts awake with the alarm vibrating in his pocket – a measure he has taken since starting to sleep in the same room with the other Avengers. "Tony," Steve mumbles and turns off the alarm. "Tony, you have lessons today."  
Tony sighs and opens his eyes. His eyes turn black. "It's 7 AM."  
"There's a while to school."  
Tony closes his eyes again and digs himself further into the blankets. "I will make Extremis call a car in half an hour."  
Steve gets up, the windows showing a still dark sky and knows that Tony can’t call for a car, it’d be against Steve’s security measures. So he pulls off the blankets and Tony shouts wordlessly.  
"You cruel, cruel man!" he cries out.  
"Sssh - "   
“What's going on?" Wanda yells, sitting up, her hands glowing.

“No, wait, relax –“

But a hex is shot loose and hits the ceiling, which in return groans warningly.   
"Nothing," Steve hushes but Pietro is already up and going, checking the basement stairs and windows for an incoming attack, just as Sam sits up shouting "WHAT THE HELL" pulling two guns out and Clint sits up, blinking at the ceiling.   
"Wanda, calm down," Steve says, because it looks like she is about to go off again. When Pietro has checked all the hotspots and concluded that they weren’t under any attack, he runs over to Scarlet, touching her cheeks. "Go to bed, Tony is just being a dramaqueen. Tony?"  
Tony has already snuggled himself underneath Pietro's duvet, dozing off.  
Wanda curses in Transian at the false alarm and lies down.  
"Are you sleeping with guns underneath your pillow?" Steve asks, staring at Sam.  
Sam lowers his arms. "No."  
Steve glares. "Hand them over or unload them."  
"What the Hell are they good for then?" Sam shouts.  
"Dude," Clint interrupts. "Do it before you shoot somebody in the ass. Trust me, I’d know.”  
Sam squints his eyes at Clint and in what universe has Steve ever predicted that Clint would be more compliant than Sam?  
Steve gets Tony up on his legs and gives him a commanding push towards the bathroom. Even as the Avengers all lie down again, it’s obvious that they’re too wired to go back to sleep.   
When Tony has finished his shower he heads directly to the thermo with coffee that Steve has made – the faint smell must have drawn him. Knowing that the coffee is freshly brewed he lets Tony drink several cups, before the genius seems to blink awake. "You know," he wonders, looking around. "Seeing this place in supposed daylight, I can see it really needs an upgrade. Maybe some pictures or something? Jeez, it looks like an armory. Well. It mostly is. But. I was thinking spring? Floral?"  
"I like it dark," Wanda snaps while Steve neutrally places the plate of oatmeal, apples and cinnamon on the table.   
"What, it feels like I'm hiding in a freaking cave or something," Tony replies, irritated.  
"Exactly," Sam supplies.  
"Sam, shut your mouth when you're eating," Steve sighs.  
"I bet you're not like that with Tony," Sam accuses.  
"That's because I'm a sophisticated nobleman who doesn't talk while I'm eating," Tony replies. "So you basically feel safer when it's dark because ... it's a place you usually hide? Where no one can see you?"  
"Basically," Sam replies.  
Tony watches the twins with unblinking eyes, thoughts obviously streaming through with high speed. "You were raised in the army?"  
"So what if we were?" Pietro asks. "What, is the Avengers only for people with perfect lives?"  
"I wouldn't describe a person who has spent his life bombarded with the entire world's media, electronic data and radio signals as a person with a perfect life," Tony shoots back, less heated and more concentrated. "Just saying that I was eight, when I wasn't either bound to a hospital bed or drooling into the carpet. But we're not here to compete our levels of tragedy, are we?"  
His eyes turn black again and Steve is starting to wonder how Tony could keep from using Extremis for such long periods of time while they had been together. "What are we using the four upper stores for?"  
"Nothing," Steve shrugs. “But they don’t have any electromagnets which means no shield. It’s safer to stay down here.”  
“You’re not wrong,” Tony hums thoughtfully, his thoughts obviously far away. It’s not hard for anyone of them to sense that there will be change.

\----

Tony wears his already used clothes, Steve’s hood and Wanda’s black sunglasses to school (“The walk of shame,” he grins) and they take the subway to school. They don’t talk about anything Avengers-related or anything at all, just lean into each other. Tony with closed eyes and Steve looking out of the windows, watching how the metro starts to elevate above the buildings and disappears into a passage in the dam. It’s dark for a while as they travel through an underground tunnel and finally emerge in New Manhattan. His phone beeps.

-        _Is Steven Grant Rogers the name you’ve always gone by?_

Steve frowns at the phone and then down at Tony. “Yes.”

-        _I’m gonna change a few things on your record; it was too obvious to skilled people that it might be fake. If we’re making our relationship public, a lot of people will be trying to dig up dirt. I need your permission to make an authentic record._

“Do what you have to,” Steve nods. “So, what about the list?”

-        _Hmm. I think some of the names are too vital to publish. I mean, you need to go some of the names through with the people concerning._

“Talk to them beforehand?”

-        _Yes. I hear T’Challa’s still in the country. You should probably be taking care of him first._

“Alright. Honest question though: How many times do you use your… _computer_ and disguise it by wearing sunglasses? Because you wear sunglasses. A lot.”

-        _You mind?_

“It’s a part of you,” Steve acknowledges hesitantly. He is honestly a bit worried, but Extremis has saved Tony’s life and not just with his heart. And if Tony is going to blue screen, it would have happened a long time ago, right? Right. “You said it was… overwhelming. How did you deal?”

-        _Dad made filters. Filters and firewalls. When Bruce came back, he improved them even more. It’s a lot easier to manage now. Talking ‘bout the old man, I’m pretty sure he’s planning something._

“Whatever it is, I think he should remain neutral, Tony,” Steve carefully says.

-        _Taking our side has given him a crown, Cap. When all of this is over, I want him to come through with clean hands._

“A crown don’t do nothing but put a target on his back. We don’t know how all of this will turn out.”

-        _You’re fighting a fight you’re not sure you will win?_

“There’s always the possibility,” Steve admits, but really he has never thought of himself as the person who’d bring an ending to all of this. After all he’s a history student. Human rights are never easy or quick to be obtained. At most he’s just another metal ring in the chain, and hopefully by the end of it there’d be an ending to all this. “Though I do think we have the odds, now that I… know you better.” Both Iron Man and Tony Stark are amazing. But _both of them_? The government would be in for the long ride. “Besides, it’s not like he has done something illegal, he’s not going to jail if…”

-        _The SHRA is taken down. I get it. But I also know that no one is going to make him an exception in this, Cap. He’s part of the Illuminati too. They made themselves society’s – Bruce’s – judge and jury. It’s arrogant and undemocratic._

“Talk patriotic to me.”

Out loud Tony hums the melody.

\----

Steve is in the middle of a lecture about Alexander the Great (He swears, that summed up? History is all about the Greek and Romans. Probably because they were a mostly white, advanced culture, which people could relate to; and well, the history students were also taught a lot about the few times the USA was the good guy) when he asks Tony to go on a date with him. Tony says yes and Steve is thankful, because this is his chance to make it up for Tony, all of their troubles and Steve’s running away.

He starts planning it, something not so out-going, slow and romantic, when he hears some seatmates starting to talk.

“Did you see Tony Stark this morning?” one of them asks.

“Nah, what?”

“Sssh, his boyfriend is sitting right there.”  
“He can’t hear us, come on, Sally.”

“The metal detector stopped him from entering the teacher’s lounge. He must have gotten some body modification.”

“Or maybe he’s just forgotten to put his phone on the platter.”

“Nuh-uh. Angelica said he was placed in the examination room. He _must_ have gotten some body modification thing.”

“Seriously? Oh my god, celebrities these days.”

“Don’t be stupid, Sally. He’s Registered. He probably didn’t have a choice.”

“Oh my god, Carl, you can’t say that!”

“Seriously, you should stop watching those videos.”

“He’s saying the truth though.”

“I’d rather lie and be alive then. It doesn’t even have anything to do with us.”

\----

The date is slow and steady. Steve takes him out to a small, Italian restaurant and after that they cross Brooklyn Bridge on their feet. It’s nice. They hold hands and Tony points out random buildings and explains quantum physics. They surprisingly don’t talk so much about the Avengers, except Steve who’s bouncing off ideas for Clint’s upcoming birthday. They swiftly avoid some reporters and take the long route home.

When they arrive they find the apartment utterly empty, which rarely – no, actually never happens. It’s weird without the TV on and does in fact look a lot like a cave.

Steve makes iced mocha and licks the spoon. Tony is watching him from the couch, his eyes dark and alluring. He sits down besides Tony and his T-shirt feels oddly tight, his feet too bare on the floor. “Want to taste?” he offers Tony awkwardly and Tony leans forward and kisses him.

It’s gentle and almost trying at first, as if they haven’t kissed many times before like this. Steve resists reaching out, as Tony seems set on exploring him. Steve understands; after all, this is the first time they’re really alone, with no students or JARVIS or bystanders.

For once, Tony’s way of learning is softly wet and in control. Unhurried. Careful. It’s Tony taking all of the time in the world and Steve realizes that he is starting to relax and warm up to it, his mouth responding in kind, and their face change angles so Steve can get everything and Tony tastes _good_. Steve’s patience runs dry a lot quicker than Tony’s, his kisses turning raw and biting, urging the younger’s mouth open. Finally the brunet loosens his lips and Steve slides his tongue inside and Tony moans, sucking on it. Steve echoes the sound and there is a brief fight of dominance, which Steve eventually surrenders into. Once again he relaxes, this time with a desire-fogged brain, and lets Tony explore. When the genius finally pulls back Steve’s panting, and Tony moans, licking Steve’s bitten lips until they feel tender and burning.

“Can we…?” Steve whispers. “Tonight…?”

Tony starts to look confused and Steve amplifies his statement by putting his hands on Tony’s chest, rub them in wobbly motions before sliding them down to the hem of Tony’s T-shirt. Tony breathes out shakily, and Steve’s hands wander underneath the cloth to touch hot, bare skin.

Tony nods jerkily and leans forward to kiss Steve again, his hand on Steve’s jaw, his thumb digging into the blond’s chin and Steve grabs for the collar of Tony’s T-shirt, quickly pulling it off before swaying back to do the same with his own.

Tony’s eyes glisten as they take in Steve’s chest, and the blond can’t quite look away from Tony’s tan figure either. “What do you want?” Steve asks, leaning into Tony’s space again and holding the boy’s cheeks.

“I…” Tony stumbles and looks down. He flushes. “I want you… inside me.”

A hot rush of heat courses through Steve’s body and he nods, pulling Tony unto his lap and with a slight laugh, Tony knots his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling him. As they start to make out, their hips begin to roll. It’s a huge step from the usual kissing and Steve can feel Tony get hard in his jeans. He gathers Tony’s knees around him, as Tony’s kissing is getting sloppy and walks them over to his bedroom.

He smacks the door closed with his foot and lays Tony down, standing back up to let his hands coax off his jeans and underwear, Tony mirroring his actions and Steve laughs as he finishes first and lays himself on top of Tony.

For some time, they’re just rolling around, grinding their bodies against each other, Steve fully enjoying the feel of all of that skin. At some point Steve finds the lube and coats his fingers. His fingers gently find the crack and a fingertip gently slips into the rim. Tony’s tight though and at war with Steve’s inability to get marks. The blond braces himself for the long ride, as his fingers starts to probe the erratically moving boy.   
Ten minutes later, and it feels hot all over, Steve can’t breathe and Tony makes it so hard for him to be patient, the brunet naked, his mouth gone sloppy as Steve has somewhat managed to finger him loose. Tony’s moaning in lusty ache, and flinchingly sensitive with every move of Steve’s fingers, his grinding hips more than once jerking. He feels ready to shoot, and wouldn’t that be sexy, Tony coming from just his fingers. Steve’s willing to bet that Tony’s refractory period is just as short as Steve’s.

With shaking knees, the dark-haired teen gradually starts sliding down so their hips are aligned and with quick abandon he starts rutting intensively between Steve’s hipbone and cock and Steve struggles not to start rubbing against him in return, instead spreading his fingers in Tony’s hole. His partner stutters in his movements and Steve responds by thrusting into him harshly, making him feel it, before adding another finger. The stretch here gets tight and Tony yells out, presses his cock into Steve’s skin and holding it there tightly, his face focused on feeling the pleasure coming from his behind. Steve teases by quickly brushing against Tony’s prostate, making the light boy cry out, before he pulls his fingers out, his hand grabbing for the lube. When he finds it he fleetingly tries to squirt it on Tony’s crack, and instead misses, coating Tony’s cheeks. It makes Tony giggle in the middle of his desperation and Steve grins into his mouth, giving a cheek a light smack before spreading it aside and squirt onto the lube, this time not missing. Tony moans, almost sobs at the cold fluid hits his hot hole.

“Please,” he growls into Steve’s neck before biting it and Steve slowly once again inserts two of his fingers.

The extra lube makes the slide easier this time and Tony makes these high, pitching sounds as Steve’s fingers takes their time pulling in and out.

Steve turns his head and kisses Tony’s sweaty temple, whispering “Relax” and Tony shakes as he exhales, his whole body quivering. Steve holds still, gives the boy time to wind down even as his cock throbs against Tony’s belly. When Steve can feel a gradual loosening, he begins fingering Tony again, this time a little faster, his fingers more curled. Tony’s body completely opens for him, the stretch goes quicker and Tony’s making small grunts against Steve’s collarbone, his upper body relaxed while the nether regions are tersely spread open, his hips still rolling into thin air. Steve pulls his fingers out and digs them in again a couple of times and Tony groans deeply, his ass meeting the fingers. Steve’s other hand lays itself on Tony’s bottom, squeezing the soft flesh until Tony squirms.

Steve adds more lube and pushes his digits in, holds them directly on to Tony’s spot and Tony cries out. Steve isn’t going easy on him, harshly massaging the spot.

“Steve, Steve, I’m ready for you,” Tony gasp into his skin. His forehead is sweaty and his eyes wet, blinking fast. “Please, please, I need you to…”

Steve pulls his fingers out and Tony whimpers.

“Can I see?” Steve’s voice sounds far away and breathy.

Tony gets off him and crawls around on his fours, laying down on the bed sheets, only to stick his ass up into the air. With no shame he spreads apart his cheeks, baring his wet hole to Steve and in return an animal-like growl is coming out of Steve’s chest. He bows down and takes Tony’s balls in his mouth, his crooked fingers sliding in once again. Tony’s response is making a noise like he’s dying. The thrusts are more brutal and hurried now, as he lets go of Tony’s balls and sucks in his cock head, Steve’s tongue relentlessly swiping underneath and over his slit. Tony’s face is all strain and relaxation at once, his lids red and lips puffed. Steve gives the boy one last suck, before he rearranges Tony onto his back and puts his hands underneath the boy’s knees.

Tony’s hips are raised a good three inches above the bed so Steve can sit on his knees. Tony blinks up at him, his lashes wet and eyes focused, desperate, before Steve slowly pushes in.

The billionaire son moans loudly at the penetration, mumbling a small “fuck” as Steve buries himself in that tight, tight heat. When he is balls deep, Tony starts clawing at his sides, urging him to be rougher even as Steve has already started thrusting into him, perhaps not in the most thoughtful pace. Tony’s knees can almost touch his own chest, and Steve is gripping Tony’s thighs, tightly, tightly.

“Steve,” Tony gasps up at him, his forehead wrinkled and his brows curves upwards.

That tone of voice makes Steve’s pace quicken, the thrusts deep and quick. Tony looks up at him, his eyes desperate and his mouth a salivated o. The moans which come out sounds like he is in pain, but his hands are rubbing Steve’s sides, butt and thighs, pulling them closer together, urging Steve to go deeper and Steve puts his hands everywhere, Tony’s chest, his arms, his neck. Tony makes a very shrill, pinched sound as Steve loses it and fucks Tony with no control, bottoming out and pulling back sharply to snap them back in again, Tony’s knees leaving red imprints on his own chest.

“Steve,” Tony shakes against him, moving up against him. “More.”

To which Steve practically mounts Tony, bending him even further. Steve sets a rough pace, sweat fogging both of their skin and Tony throws his head back, his gasps and moans turning into breathless sobs, his cock hard and dark red against his stomach, slick with precome. Steve feels like an animal, driven with lust and controlled by instinct and Tony is looking up at him, his mouth unmoving and his eyes open wide, staring at Steve, needy. Steve’s moans are starting to arise too now, low and deep. He forces himself to go slower. Tony is shaking his head from side to side, his fingers clenching in the pillows before Steve finally relents his pounding and encloses Tony’s form tightly within his own, the sound of skin slapping obscenely loud. Tony gasps as Steve bumpily smashes their lips together, until Tony’s whimper is a hum going straight through Steve’s body, through his groin. Tony suddenly cries out and Steve can feel hot spurts of fluid hit their chins and chests. Steve is not far behind, his release feeling like forever to finish, his whole groin an area of throbbing satisfaction. Tony weeps quietly as Steve finishes taking his mouth, kisses the swelling lips, before licking Tony’s cum away from his chin and from his neck.

He’s waiting for Tony’s breathing to go down, but it keeps going rapidly, carrying a whimper.

“Ssh, Tony,” Steve whispers, kissing Tony’s mouth gently. “Relax. I’m here.”

He scatters pecks all over Tony’s face, clenching him until Tony finally stops shaking. They lie still, breathing in sync.

“Again,” Tony whispers, his voice all croaked and his hand sliding down to Steve’s cock.

“Wh… What?”

“Again.” Tony spreads his legs. “Come on, Steve. You’re still hard…”

“Tony.” Steve puts his hand on Tony’s. “You were really… maybe we should wind down a bit, yeah?”

“No,” Tony groans. “Please, Steve, I need it, I need more – I-I need – I need you in me, please –“

Steve can already feel Tony’s cock hardening against his hip again and he stares at Tony’s face, his blown eyes and heaving chest.

He lets Tony spread his legs around him again but this time he fucks him with more restraint. The boy must obviously be a bit sore and Tony takes it, sweetly and keening this time. After that they fall asleep like babies in their own dirt and Steve wakes up drooling at sunrise, sticky and uncomfortable. He would be happy to keep sleeping, but there is only so long the Avengers would give them some alone time. Steve gets in the shower and mournfully washes Tony’s scent off. He prepares a warm towel and steps outside.

“Mm,” Tony grunts as Steve starts to rub his belly clean. “None of us have classes today.”

“I know,” Steve replies and goes lower to rub at Tony’s sticky hole. “Just relax.”

Tony sighs and locks a foot behind Steve’s knee. “One more time before the kids come home.”

“It’s morning.”

“My dick doesn’t care.”

Steve bows down over him. “You’re all red down there. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, big guy. I loved every second of it.”

“Still.” Steve lets a finger stroke down. “You’re probably too sore.”

“Well,” Tony briefly pouts before he gets a little smirk. “There are other ways to have fun.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve asks and pecks him on the mouth.

“Mm-hm.” Tony pulls him in for a deeper smooch and his hand grips Steve’s shoulder. His fingers pierce in there for a second, before they drift down, raising goose bumps on their way.

“How about…” Steve nips at Tony’s lips before kissing his cheek and sharply biting his earlobe with his corner teeth. “I suck you?”

Tony’s breath hitches and taking it as permission, Steve goes lower. He takes his time trailing down his tongue along the line of Tony’s breastbone, suck the skin and mark it, push burnt red into the olive skin; more than one set of Steve’s fingerprints can be found on Tony’s body and he bites the bruises lightly, kisses them. He moves all the way back up to Tony’s collarbones, inhales Tony’s scent while pressing his lips around the bones. Tony is breathing shallowly and Steve noses his way down to his naval, dipping his tongue in it and playing with the trail of brown hair with his fingers. It still slightly tastes like Tony’s seed and his dick jumps with the odor. Steve goes lower while his hands grasp around Tony’s sides, sliding up and rubbing Tony’s nipple. He presses his face against Tony’s pubs, the smell of musk and sweat and sex filling him. He pinches the nipples and a broken moan escapes his lover. His hands are almost covering Tony’s ribs completely and every time he moves them around Tony whimpers.

Finally Steve swallows Tony and promptly startles as Tony bucks his hip and hits the back of his throat.

“Sorry,” the boy whispers, his voice drugged and rasp.

Steve holds the hips down and continues his work. Tony’s dick is proportional, yet on the thick side and if Steve takes him down all the way, his throat would probably tighten around Tony’s cock. He drags his mouth back and presses a kiss to the root. “No problem. I don’t have… a …”

Tony lifts his brows. “A?”

“A… gag… reflex.”

Tony sits up, his eyes immediately lightning up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Steve smiles a little, more relaxed. “Go crazy, Iron Man.”

“Oh my god.” Tony covers his face with a hand and gracefully sits up. Steve watches him with wet, open lips. He had always known that Tony owned elegancy, but it’s the first time he has noticed the agility. Tony reaches out and moves Steve, until the blond’s laying flat, his head propped up on a pillow. Tony places himself with his knees on each side of Steve’s neck, because his shoulders are too wide. Holding his cock, he teases Steve with it, lets him suck the head and rubbing it against the inner walls of his mouth, before he slowly slides in. He groans and Steve thanks the lord that Tony hasn’t shown any signs of premature ejaculation, because he really wants to take his time and enjoy this.

Tony’s forehead is slightly sweaty and he’s intensively watching his dick disappear in Steve’s mouth, his hips setting a steady and gentle rhythm. Steve’s hands automatically crawl up from his thighs and on his ass, squeezing the flesh urgently and then pushing him forward. Tony groans, as Steve’s throat stays open for him. Tony whimpers, biting his lip. Steve lets him go when Tony pulls back and independently thrusts in deeper. Steve moans and Tony lets himself go at a quicker pace, but Steve can feel his cock swelling and twisting already. Tony runs his hands through Steve’s hair, soothing, before he suddenly snaps his hips deep and a hot stream of want goes straight to Steve’s crotch. He reaches down and starts to stroke himself and Tony makes this small, desperate sound as works his hips swiftly and deep now.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Tony mummers and by the tone, Steve isn’t sure if Tony realizes he’s talking out loud. “Wanna come with my dick in your mouth?”

Steve groans and his grip on his dick gets harder. Just as Tony pulls back his dick spurts out semen and it tastes round yet slightly metallic, kind of like bitter blood or sweet cobber. The thought makes Steve snort with laughter and Tony yowls as Steve’s teeth accidently close around the shaft. He pulls out. “What the Hell, Rogers?”

“It’s just…” Steve can barely breathe, his brain overrun by endorphins of all the sex and love and rest he has gotten. “You ‘re Iron Man. And you taste metallic. It’s just funny.”

Tony makes a face and then a big smile unfolds on his face. “I taste metallic?” he asks. “Possibly the nanites.”

“ _Nanites_?” Steve sputters.

Tony laughs and Steve pinches his ass.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein there is cake, collage debts, Tony going mad scientist and a new heroine joins the team.

When Clint stumbles in around 9 am, Steve has already made two plates cheese biscuits and is pulling out a plate of honey almond muffins. Steve turns around and crosses his arms.

“I brought the newspaper,” Clint hastily bribes before Steve can open his mouth. Steve eyes it hungrily. There’s so much more information in the newspaper, even though it’s just as framed as the news.

“Where have you been?” Steve asks anyway.

“Out,” Clint deflects, grabbing a hot muffin and swings up to his nest, even if he sleeps on the floor with the others nowadays. “Before you start interrogating me, that red-costumed guy – “

“Sam.”

“- whatever, harassed us all until we got out because he thought you needed to get laid.” Clint looks around and then sniffs in deeply. “Which you apparently did. The smell is fresh, is he still here?”

“That is just downright creepy, Clint. And yes, he’s still sleeping.”

Clint shrugs and even from up there, Steve can smell New Manhattan on him. Steve isn’t sure what Clint does when he’s out, most of the time he’s indoors cooking or surfing on the net or watching the news. When he goes out, it’s mostly to bring money back. Not much, just a couple a ten’s and a twenty, he thinks nobody notices him put in the food jar. Sometimes he smells like pets. He’s fallen in great with the Avengers and has started speaking up about the things, which were seriously on his mind, which Steve’s glad, because his input is mostly very insightful. But sometimes Steve could still feel a certain distance between him and the Avengers. It sometimes causes concern, but it’s not serious enough an issue to try to talk to Clint about it.

“Read that for me,” Clint points at one of the columns on the front page.

Steve does that sometimes, when no one’s around – which isn’t a lot, admittedly, especially now that Sam is here and Tony is going to be more in the future. Clint only went through one and half year of high school before dropping out and though he can read, write and do simple mathematics just fine, sometimes it’d still show how behind he is. The reason he asks Steve to read the newspaper for him isn’t because Clint can’t; he’ll just only get the whole picture vaguely. Steve can explain the longer words and historical context; and he doesn’t have to explain something twice. It’s a shame Clint never got properly educated, because the boy is – despite his lack of knowledge – very clever. He’s quick on the uptake, remembers what he wants very accurately and despite the twins knowing the basics of hand-to-hand combat, it’s Clint who has improved the most with Steve’s training. Hell, Steve would even bet that Clint could reach Sam’s level within two months. Besides all of this, Clint is brilliant at handcrafting and he makes his own explosives and arrows and by someone who hadn’t seen the battlefield before he impulsively entered it, he’s very clearheaded and coordinated. The loose cannon attitude is still present, but what it represented has disappeared.

“Clint.” Steve folds the newspaper and puts it on the table. Clint sways back, obviously alarmed by the Steve’s solemn tone of voice and ready for flight. “Do you want to go back to school?”

“What?” Clint stutters and suddenly looks absolutely horrified. “No.”

“Because I can arrange that,” Steve continues, because now that he asks, he can see it’s obvious that Clint has been thinking about it.

“Are you saying that I’m stupid?” Clint bickers, but it sounds weak. Aha. ‘Thought about it and suppressed it,’ Steve fleetingly realizes.

Steve tries to not reach out so he won’t scare the 16-year old. “You gave up a lot of things to help us that day,” Steve solemnly says and Clint looks a minute away from breaking the ceiling windows and run without tugging his shoes on. “It’d only be fair to help you start a new life here.”

“I wouldn’t have stuck with the circus anyway, and then it’d only be a matter of time before I’d get Registered and sent to the army,” Clint pipes frantically. “I just wanted you to read me the newspaper, fuck, it’s no big deal.”

“Sending you to college wouldn’t be a big deal,” he keeps up stubbornly.

“Fuck,” Clint groans but he just sounds pained now. “I haven’t even finished high school, how do you want me to begin with college?”

“It’s not like you’re missing anything important, you’re not actually supposed to learn anything in high school,” Steve waves him off. “College is all about the attitude you approach it with. We will just tweak your age a bit; make a fake diploma. We’ll lay your address the same place as mine; you could pose as my cousin from Iowa.”

The more Steve talks the more Clint seems to shrivel in. “It’s a lot of money, Cap.”

“It’s twenty grand if I pull some threads and I already have that much saved up. Besides, with both me, the twins and Sam paying for food I don’t think we will really be more tapped out than we usually are,” Steve soothes, maintaining eye contact. “It’s only fair.”

“But what if I can’t do it,” Clint protests rather than asks in a very, very small voice. The contrast of Clint’s bravado and the view of his self-worth, is crumbling sometimes.

“Of course you can,” Steve pep talks. “Just pick something which interests you and you already have the motivation in place. Don’t think about how much money it will make. You’re still young. Do it for you.”

“But what if people pick on me.”  
Steve lifts his brows, momentary surprised by Clint’s concern. It wouldn’t be one of the things Steve would have thought worried Clint, but now that the archer has put it out there it seems obvious. Clint grew up a circus boy and orphan. Never mind the tough skin. Nobody likes to be lonely and an outcast. “They’re not. And if they are, I will kick their ass.”

“Whose ass are you going to kick?” Tony yawns from the door.

Steve looks at Clint who doesn’t look defensive, just a little bit insecure. Steve is pleased that Clint doesn’t seem to mind Tony joining the conversation. “Clint’s going to start college next trimester,” Steve carefully answers. “He’s worried about bullies.”

“If a bully so much as catcalls your tight ass, Steve will beat the living crap out of them,” Tony insures, crossing the distance to the kitchen and naturally pours himself a cup from the thermos bottle. “I will delete the footage so you won’t get expelled, no worries.”  
“Tony!” Steve reprimands as Tony downs the cup.

“I’m not wrong,” Tony huffs and unscrews the thermos to drink directly from it. “You don’t know frat boys, Steve, they leave you alone because you’re big and people like you and you’ve gotten people suspended.”

“What, you’ve had trouble?” Steve looks up at him. “Who?”

“See,” Tony nods at Steve while looking at Clint. He plants himself across Steve’s lap, still looking at the archer. “Look at that patriotic, angry frown. Anyway, what do you want to study?”

Most of the morning goes by with Tony and Steve helping Clint picking a major. Steve ends up making Bernie have Clint skip the queue and calling the office about the fees and makes them send the bill, he basically cuts off in half as he uses the data for his own student-id, which has access to the studio, laboratory supplies, a computer account with administrative access. When Clint’s student ID arrived, Steve would be able to get him a youth transportation card. He can’t take away the tuition cost and would feel bad doing so (even though it had, in the beginning, been what he had done with himself). 18 grant isn’t that much, except that Clint would need school supplies and books. But hey, his membership at the school committee couldn’t be for nothing in that end. He distantly listens, to Tony and Clint make up a false diploma.

At noon Wanda calls ahead to ask if she needed to pick something up (because something always needed to be picked up these days) and talks her through shopping in some weird hole in the wall place. When she arrives, he pushes some large bills into her head and throws himself into his “new project”: The basement.

Within a day he has made a heater which finally provides the place hot water, and he has started rebuilding the sofa table in a way Steve doesn’t really understand, but which takes up his whole attention and makes him curse a lot at the outlets. Tony even touches up the sensors outside of the building. At some point he passes out underneath the couch, only to wake up in the evening and talk technobabble into a circuit board, forcing it into his backpack, before drinking all of Steve’s coffee and eating the last cheese biscuit.

They kiss goodbye and Tony leaves with in a kamikaze like rush, speaking into his phone and Steve watches his back disappear in wonder.

\----

Five hours later Tony calls and says that he is about 83 percent sure that his father is going to another meeting, and how rude is that, his son is not home and Howard dares to get up to funny business? Tony traces Bruce’s phone back to Baxter Building and prepares putting the building on lockdown while the team argues.

“We’re going with you,” Sam cuts in immediately as Steve starts going through the plan. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking.”  
“If you’re going with me, it’s all over if we get caught,” Steve shoots back. “I have the mental blocks, remember?”

“Can we just do it like last time you went to Stark Tower?” Clint asks. “We will wait outside and you will get Iron Man to say ‘We come with peace’.”

“Last time we had Franklin as a safe,” Wanda points out.

“But we do have vital information, we _know_ Black Panther would like to have,” Clint argues.

“How are we going to convince them that?” Pietro asks. “They’re not gonna believe us. _I_ don’t believe us.”

“Well, I could try to say it,” Tony suggests from the speaker. “But can we trust that?”

They decide on a direct video call while jogging through the subway tunnels because Fury needs them to take of a train with a load down on Staten Island. A couple of H.A.M.M.E.R. agents are going to jump on-board as safeguards five miles from Newark, so they have to make it quick. By the sound of cracks on Steve’s communicator, Iron Man is putting him through and the voices of the Illuminati streams into Steve’s ears. Instead of giving into the thought of just listening to their conversation about Important Things, he mildly coughs and interrupts: “Captain America speaking.”

There’s absolute silence. Iron Man asks him to pull up his phone.

“Is Black Panther, king of Wakanda, here?” he asks. His screen flickers once before Tony connects it to the security cam in the Giant Map Room. The Illuminati are sitting around a table, not eating this time and with red points in the map behind the.

“I’m here,” Black Panther replies, voice blank.

“I have vital information I thought I’d share,” Steve informs. “It’s private, so you might want to ask the other members to exit the room, since it’d take too long to move me.”

Black Panther doesn’t respond and none of the others move.

“If you insist,” Steve sighs. “As you know, we were on an intelligence raid a few months ago.” He doesn’t mention it was in the exact same building they’re sitting in right now. Saying that out loud would probably feel too personal for both the Avengers and Mr. Fantastic. ”It has been quite hard decrypting the information, but then again, nothing is impossible. We have a complete list of the prisoners. Even though Reed is the guardian of the Negative Zone, he doesn’t actually know who’s in the there. Avengers, grating ahead.”

He pauses, swiftly picks up Wanda and speeds up to jump over it, Pietro already ahead of them and Sam carrying Clint.

Steve lands and slows his tempo to let Wanda catch up “I stumbled over a name, which you probably don’t know. Faizah Amir Galmaan – sorry for the likely mispronunciation. It took me a while to figure it out. It’s actually pretty cool – in Somali culture, a child’s middle name is their father’s and their last name is their paternal grandfather’s.”

“Where are you going with this?” Black Panther asks.

“Your sister married a man called Amir Galmaan Haybe in the UK before she died. You should hit up the H.A.M.M.E.R. archives, because a spy reported all of this to them a lot of years ago. Amir Galmaan Haybe lives here in New York. His daughter, Faizah, was arrested half a year ago during a SHRA protest. It wasn’t her first time. I know you’re not really involved with H.A.M.M.E.R., but they know how to take care of pestilences.”

“Are you saying that Shuri married and had a daughter in America without me knowing?”

“No, she had her daughter in England. Her husband moved to New York after Shuri’s death.”

Black Panther suddenly jumps up from the table. “How dare you use my sister’s death against me to manipulate me into getting involved in your battle!” he yells. “Don’t you have any respect?”

Steve startles but only for a second. “Excuse me, you’re the weapons provider of the human army,” Steve says, slightly insulted. “You’re _already_ _involved_ in my selfish battle and like it or not, you picked sides.”

“It’s true that there’s a Faizah Amir Galmaan in the Negative Zone, T’Challa,” Howard steps in. “But I don’t know if the rest of that is true. What are your sources, son?”

-        _Son??+++???_

“I’ve made allies with the former S.H.I.E.L.D.-director, Nicholas Fury Jr.” The Avengers are nearing the out. Steve has to finish this. “A lot of his children still work in H.A.M.M.E.R. and occasionally open a minor leak. A year or more ago, I read the report about your sister’s illegal marriage. I didn’t know that her daughter was even here or that she had been arrested, before I saw her name on the list and looked into it.”

Sam makes the sign in the corner of his eye.

“Look, I have to make this quick, but your niece was put in there because she has a slight gene mutation. Not the X-factor, I think it’s just a mutation bound to happen with the many generations’ consumption of the Heart Herb before her. That’s the law’s justification to not put her in a human prison anyway. Excuse me.” Steve covers the microphone with a thumb. “Falcon, I need you to get the cars compromise. Scarlet, I need you at my back; we’re going to check for goods. Quicksilver, I want you to run ahead and make sure the tracks are clean and then get Hawkeye over the wall.” He takes it off again. “Do I still have your attention?”

Black Panther looks directly at the camera. “If what you say is a lie, I will do H.A.M.M.E.R. a big favor and hunt you down myself.”

“What I say is true, but the information might be wrong. I just thought you had the right to know anyway,” Steve calmly replies, though his whole body does get cold because Black Panther is not a enemy he’d like to have. ”You probably know this, but ten years ago, a law was passed on here, which closed off our boarders, but also made sure that Dr. Doom didn’t have any immunity in the states. Wakanda was an exception, a benefit of the trading. If Shuri really is her mother, Faizah is loyalty and therefore the American justice system has no right to hold her. Go do the rich man thing where you hire a thousand of the world’s best lawyers and bribe a ton of people to get her out. She’s 18 and grew up normally without any training; she won’t survive the Negative Zone for long. Falcon on your left!” He disconnects the call just in time to get Scarlet down from a haze of blue-red electricity. They look up and Steve internally curses.

Not H.A.M.M.E.R. Not Sentinels.

Military: A hero corps, to be precise. Five members, fours guys and one girl make it up. One of them is opposing on the east side, right opposite Clint, and he’s wearing a red sleeve. Shield-maker then. The train is starting to speed up as he talks. It’s not allowed to go very quick while going through the suburban, but as soon as it has passed the bridge, there’d be no way for either Steve, Wanda or Clint to catch it and with the squad, he couldn’t trust that Pietro and Sam could do it on their own.

“Hawkeye, get your neighbor occupied,” he barks and sees the female member slide into their way and run towards them. She’s slick and smooth, and through her insecurity, there is the steel glare of procedure and training. She’s fighting them head on.

She must be the muscle.

And Steve isn’t sure what to expect. The military might have more training, but the Avengers are unconventional. They know how to get things done. The corps has most likely studied the Avengers beforehand though, where the military is only an encounter Steve actually makes at the boarder and the hero corps never one he has had before. “Scarlet, Silver, Falcon, I need all the advise I can get,” Steve calls out. “Iron Man, can you determine what team we’re up against?”

There’s crackling as Steve gets up. Scarlet absorbs the wave behind them and sends it directly at the shield-maker, who has trapped Falcon on the second last car. It’s not enough to seriously hurt, but enough to get him down for a minute or two. Steve’s trying to get clear view of the other teams position, but he can’t find the last three members who’d just been there. Falcon continues his trip. “Iron Man, a background search, ASAP.”

The muscle member strikes and Steve falls behind to engage, so Pietro can safely throw Scarlet into the cars to follow Scarlet’s trail. It’d be a dead-end if one of the members turned out to be hiding inside, but Steve more than trusted that Scarlet could take care of it.

“Squad 294,” Tony informs as Steve barely avoids a kick, which should probably had broken all of his ribs. He’s getting sure now, ‘cause despite her strength, she’s slow and her moves are predictable. “Personally put together by Thunderbolt himself when they were pups, and has trained together since. The girl has super strength and durability, but she sinks like a stone in water. You all need to watch out, one of them teleports. And he does taekwondo.”

“And the two others?” Steve asks, planting a solid kick in her sternum, pushing her down the hill. He makes a face. There’re not a lot of branches on the hill. She could take it. And it’d be better than drowning her.

“Five ‘o clock, Cap,” Hawkeye warns, hisses really, as the shield-maker is back to distracting him.

Steve turns around and almost falls over his feet. He can’t see the teleporter, but the two order males are running very quickly out of their hiding place.

Someone is chasing them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Has this story been going for too long? I personally enjoy writing it, but I just noticed the word count and I was like, WOW, ok, oops, author had a little too much fun. What do you think? O.o


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stolen pickup truck bumps over the desert landscape. The silence is almost deafening, and Steve is yawning every second now, almost too tired to keep focus on the road. They’re dusty and dirty and how they ended up in North Carolina is a mystery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes are my own

The stolen pickup truck bumps over the desert landscape. The silence is almost deafening, and Steve is yawning every second now, almost too tired to keep focus on the road. They’re dusty and dirty and how they ended up in North Carolina is a mystery. A mystery consisting of trashing a lot of vehicles, herein dropping a small grenade into the hero corps’ helicopter, odd and sudden teleportation and Sam collapsing on the middle of the road, his foot so swollen that they had to cut up his shoe. Steve had carried him most of the way after they had looked at the fracture, right until they had found the abandoned truck. It was supposedly broken, but Clint and Wanda had got it going somehow. The windows are opened but Sam is still sweating, breathing heavily.

After one and a half hour, Steve directs the car towards a small city. It’s far away enough from the nearest police station that they can take a break and get some fuel. Besides, the Sentinels are only passing by every hour over here. He looks at the side mirror and slows down the car as he blinks into the new driveway.

Once they’d reached the boarder, Tony had to leave. He had made sure that license plate couldn’t be tracked though, and had crossed off Steve’s attendance to his Thursday classes.

It isn’t safer outside NY State though. People’s opinions about the government are a lot less radical; probably because it’s the army corps’ which are patrolling out here instead of the Sentinels. That had made the opinion about Registration something entirely else, something police-like and human. Safe.

Steve is pretty sure the costume won’t go unbothered here and the police won’t turn a blind eye.

“Is there anything special you want to eat?” he asks the car passengers, looking up into the rear-view mirror.

Almost all of them follow his eyes.

“No thank you,” the girl answers.

Steve slips into a drive-in McDonalds. “What do you want to be called?”

The sturdy built girl meets his eyes. “Jewel.”

Which only confirms Steve’s suspicion. He moves his eyes away to not make her uncomfortable and talks into the McDonald mic: “Two big fries, two hamburgers, one big mac, seven medium cokes, one large green tea, five cookies, six hot wings, two small fries, four cheeseburgers and about a dozen ketchups.”

“No dessert?” the service worker in the speaker replies.

He looks around in the car and there’s no response. “No thank you.”

“You didn’t have to order the Big Mac, do I look like I’m hungry?” Sam complains.

“Then save it for later,” Steve replies.

Pietro closes his eyes, pearls of clear sweat dripping down his face.

Steve drives the car forwards and passes Wanda the tea. The worker stares at him and then out in the car full of dirty costumed teenagers. She’s young.

“Can I trust your discretion?” Steve mildly asks, making sure to take all the harshness out of his voice.

She blushes underneath her eyes and around her nose. “O-Of course, Captain.” She smiles shakily and quickly steps in to shield them from her co-worker who’s bringing her the rest of their food.

Steve nods, notes her nametag and leaves the drive-in. He’s too worried to eat. “Do you have a place to go?” Steve asks Jewel.

“Not anymore,” she replies silently.

He nods. “You’re Jessica Jones and Luke Cage’s daughter, aren’t you?” he ask.

“I knew I should have chosen a different alias,” she replies dryly.

“You fly, your skin is unbreakable, you’re strong and you know kung fu,” Steve sighs. “It’s a rare mix. I heard what happened to Danny two years ago. I’m sorry. Hawkeye, eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” Clint groans, holding his head.

The radio screeches and he flinches. Steve eyes the blinking numbers.  
“Heya Avengers, Iron Man in,” a mechanical voice calls out and Steve sighs with relief. “How’re things? I’m watching the hero corps’ footage right now. They were wearing helmet cameras, so they had something to bring back to analyze.”

“Delete it when you’re done.”

“Sure. Who is our new heroine?”

“Jewel, say hello to Iron Man,” Steve introduces.

“Wait, isn’t Iron Man the master hacker of the team?” Jewel asks and Steve thinks ‘Aha, I _knew_ people knew he was an Avenger’.

There’s a second of silence. “Shit, you’re the Cages’ daughter.”

“It can’t be that obvious,” the heroine complains.

“It kinda is, sorry,” Tony apologetically says. “Your parents are legendary.”

“So I hear,” she grunts and picks up Sam’s untouched Big Mac.

Steve doesn’t know the whole story. He knows Jones tried to apply for probation six months after her imprisonment, even agreed to Register. But because of her “war crimes” the judge rejected it. He knows that Iron Fist – one of the few superheroes left in the resistance – had stolen a baby, named Danielle Cage, four months later from the prison hospital in central city. Through the years, Iron Fist had been steadily fighting and had played his role in the resistance, but there had been gaps of years between his public, costumed appearances. It hadn’t been hard to figure out that he was probably raising Danielle on his own now, or at least guarded the place she was in. Either way, the X-men had helped a lot.

“Sorry about your godfather,” Iron Man condoles.

“How the Hell does everyone know about Danny?” she snaps.

“There was a ceremonial in his honor,” Steve explains. “The X-men, the few superheroes left, and most of the Resistance showed up. He made a big difference. Scarlet and Silver were there.”

Wanda and Pietro mumble the affirmative. Sam had still been in the army at that point, Steve only making videos and Clint still in the circus, but everyone saw the news, how the last anti-Registration hero had finally fallen and taken into custody.

Steve stops the truck at _Family Dollar_ and picks up a first aid kit. When he’s back in the truck, the Avengers are snapping at each other. Time to set the course back to New York.

The radio screeches again. “’Ey Cap, I got someone who wants to talk to you,” Iron Man quickly announces and without waiting for a response, he switches channel.

“Captain,” a voice greets and Steve can recognize it anywhere.

“What do you want, Panther?” Steve asks crankily.

“Busy?”

“Iron Man, get him off the com,” Steve demands.

“Wait,” T’Challa breaks out, this time weaker. “I have an offer.”

“I don’t want none of your offers, T’Challa,” Steve snaps. “Just stay neutral and out of our way.”

“She doesn’t want to come home.”

Steve straightens his back and drives faster. With a sigh he readjusts his bandana. “She’s been living here most of her life, Panther.”

“She’s of Wakandan heritage,” T’Challa insists.

“It’s not the best time to talk about the bloodline with her,” Steve sighs. He’s read Faizah’s papers. She had been a firecracker, a radical person wanting to change for the better. From the number of demonstrations, blogs-forums and articles she has made, she won’t just leave prison when there are people there who has done much less. She won’t just declare herself the Wakandan princess and not care about the problem in the USA anymore. “You might want to grant her freedom to make her own choice.”

“She’s not safe here,” T’Challa emphasizes.

“No one’s safe here.” Especially not black people. “But I will be keeping an eye on her, if she wants. She’s not getting special treatment just because she’s royalty, though. Iron Man.”

The radio turns off.

“She should get special treatment,” Jewel comments, which Steve is secretly pleased about. Making use of her mouth and not being afraid to air her opinion to the group is a clever thing in this case of teammates. Especially because the dialogue and the information exchange in the group worked so quickly. “She’s Black Panther’s only blood relative and if he doesn’t have any children, she’s going to inherit the throne. And let’s not forget this country is known for their excellent weaponry. She’d be the perfect hostage.”

“T’Challa’s role as a equipment provider hasn’t been disclosed to the public,” Tony lets out. “He just ended the contract.”

“Why are you calling it ‘equipment’?” Jewel asks.

“Because T’Challa would never agree to trading Wakandan weapon technology with the American military,” Wanda replies. “What he provided us was very limited: Surveillance gear, security systems, EV cameras, energy absorption cages and in some rare cases, metahuman sedation. I know the Wakandan military had efficient, safe mutant suppressants for special occasions, but they didn’t want to share that secret.”

Hawkeye’s brows pinch. “I thought the rest of the world were different about metahumans. It’d be kind of hypocritical when their Cat God grants the kings superpowers, right?“

“The Wakandan population is even more xenophobic than the USA,” Tony explains. “Superhumans are only accepted by the public for religious purposes.”

“It’s taboo,” Steve clarifies to Clint. “People with the X-gene do exist in Wakanda just like any other place in the world.”

“If T’Challa is taking back his gadgets, then what about the hero camps?” Sam speaks up. “Won’t it be dangerous to the public if rogues started to escape?”

“We can count on discipline for a while,” Scarlet considers. “They’ve all been brought up behind those fences and the corps leaders make sure that they don’t interact with the outside world a lot. I mean, propaganda has been drilled into their heads most of their lives. So the question is if they even _want to_ escape.”

“There will always be exceptions,” Tony supplies. “If they go rogue and decide on vengeance for their shitty lives, we got a whole new generation of super villains. And I know that a limited, but considerable Super Sentinels are being produced this second. Unorganized the rogues won’t stand a chance and it’ll be two steps back with the public about their view of the superhumans.”

“Not if they join the Resistance,” Jewel slowly supplies. “It’d be hard though to pick a side.”

“This is like in the eighties,” Steve thinks out loud. “With the homosexual movement. We need to work on not only making them _meta_ but _meta and proud_.”

“I bet most of them will be passive,” Tony sighs. “So. Cap. You have the advantage of time.”

“Time is the best condition to plant just the right seed,” Wanda nods. “So, a speech.”

“An injection of self-acceptance, unity, positivity and good ol’ righteousness,” Tony cheekily cheers. “Responsibility,” Steve breathes, “to be good to others.”

 _‘Charity, Steve,’_ Bucky talks and Steve almost swings in the wheel in shock by the voice. ‘ _Show them the meaning of benevolent, giving and sharing.’_

Steve quickly glances up at the rearview mirror and he can see Bucky looking back at him where Clint is really sitting.

“How the Hell am I supposed to show that to all of them?” Steve asks him.

“We will figure something out,” Tony replies.

 _‘You taught it to these people,’_ Bucky nods and looks pointedly around in the car. ‘ _You taught me.’_

That’s pretty arrogant of Steve to think, since Bucky must be a figment of his imagination. “I will try,” he mutters and looks over his shoulder to find Clint sitting where he’s supposed.

“Just do your best,” Sam slurs, before he nods off.

\-----

Around 8 miles away from Winston Salem, they take another break at a small seep. It’s surrounded with rocks and trees shifting colors, the road only a few hundred meters away. Steve sticks Sam’s foot into the cool water and cleans the wound, before sewing it. He binds it with elastic bandages to control the swelling, but is more than aware how dangerous it could turn out if the bandages stays on for too long and that Sam needs proper treatment. The foot is nasty and discolored and Sam is out of commission for the weeks it will heal. Hell, maybe Sam even needs surgery to reset some bones. Steve decides that he will have to visit Banner with Sam, just to make sure.

Jewel sits down beside him and with a sigh, she pulls off the silver tiara Steve can recognize as a replica of Power Man’s. It makes the yellow mask around her face loose, and she pulls off the yellow gloves and boots and at last zips up the white terra cota-ish flexible suit.

Steve examines the fireproof fabric and neat stitches. “This was Rand’s?”

She nods. “I got it sewn in to my size.”

Steve smiles up at her. “Neat.”

The Avengers starts to gather around them, cooling their bare feet in the water and rubbing off the worst layers of grime on their uniforms. He’s already ordered them not to unmask, not until he’s cleared Danielle with Summer or Grey.

“You alright, Guardian Angel?” Steve asks, mildly shoving at the guy.

“Guardian Angel wants an early fucking retirement,” Sam groans. “It hurts like Hell.”

“Hm,” Steve hums and pulls off his tank top.

Steve kneels down. “Keep the foot away from the water for safety’s sake.”

“Do I look like I’m headin’ for a swim?”

“Birds swim,” Steve frowns. “Can’t you see Clint’s in the water?”

Sam turns his head, and true, Clint is standing with the water up to his knees, washing his shirts and gloves.

“Ducks swim too,” Steve continues.

“Do not even compare me to those asshole, non-stoic creatures,” Sam grimaces. Sometimes Steve forgets that Sam actually _talks_ with birds.

-        _Where are you?_

Steve frowns. – _No idea. Trace my phone. Why?_

“Tell me if one of your friends see a Sentinel,” Steve smiles and lays back.

It’s nice. They let most of their uniforms dry on the grass while Clint and Pietro is fighting a water war – Pietro with the obvious weapon of speed, though Clint pretty quickly estimates just when and how to make sure Pietro fails at his attempts. Sam dozes again, a little ash-faced. Wanda sits beside him and he naturally puts an arm around her shoulders, so she can lean up to him and absorb the furnace-like warmth his body emits. Her body turns slack and relaxed as she rests, and her arm slips out of her cape. It’s uncovered since her jacket is drying, and tattooed number on her arm is stark against her skin. He’s gotten glimpse of the marks once or twice, but normally the twins aren’t too fond of showing it. Doesn’t mean that Steve doesn’t already know which numbers are there; both Iron Man and Cap knows. It had been hard to ask them, but the Sentinels would shoot at them the second their scanners registered the twins X-gene and identified it with the number in their systems. Walking around in public had been damn near impossible for them. But because of Steve’s memory, they hadn’t needed to show him twice. The same goes with Sam, but since he had been human when he joined the army, he hadn’t gotten the tattoo – his number had been on the file. And Iron Man makes sure that the three deserters would leave the database just as quickly they entered it. Which is normal by now, Steve guesses. It’s hard to keep them out after all.

-        _Shit, shit, **CAP**._

Steve frowns at his phone, his damp fingers leaving prints on the display.

-        _SENTINELS ARE FOLLOWING ME, SAVE ME._

Steve lays Wanda on the grass and turns on the com. “Iron Man, position.”

 

“Half a mile away from you, getting closer rapidly, eleven o clock!”

Steve stares through the woods and towards the road, sensing no form of movement. “Sam, is anybody – “

“Look UP, idiot!” Tony bellows and Steve does in time to see a – a golden-red robot? It brings out its arms, blue thrusters rocketing him through the air. And Steve realizes that this must be Tony.

A second later a heavy air pressure blazes down on them and two Sentinels flies over them, looking big and clumsy and primitive compared to the armor.

“What did you do?” Steve shouts.

“What’s going on?” Scarlet sits up, blinking blurrily at the sun. “What’s that sound?”

Next second he’s barking out orders and the Avengers, including Jewel, squabble around to take position.

Steve calls out. Iron Man doesn’t reply. He calls out again.

Iron Man shoots by and Sam immediately impinges the Sentinels. They waver for a second, but Danielle is already in the air and has latched onto one of their backs, ripping off its head with her bare hands and Clint shoots the other open.

Iron Man flies back to them, looks at the wreckage for a second before dropping down to the slip. The movement is almost graceful. Steve can feel his pulse pounding in worry and anger, but the second Iron Man is down, he’s flopping down on his back and holding the helmet’s eyes. There’s a parting in the lower half of the faceplate, a mouth-like straight line curving down at the edges, which must mean that the plate is removable, but Tony doesn’t pull it off. Which is weird, because Steve would be really claustrophobic in his place.

This isn’t the first time Tony has worn the armor.

“I’m never gonna do that again, geez,” the armor groans in an electronic voice, “how can you people not have a heart condition, I think I’m redeveloping one.”

Steve steps on his face. “You better have a very good explanation when we come home.”

The armor clicks and then smoothly dismantles into a firm, square suitcase, leaving Tony sweaty and flushed on the grass.

The suitcase has a flashy keychain.

Steve’s lips are thinning.

“Is that Tony Stark?” Danielle asks curiously, before Scarlet loudly sighs and lays back down, shutting her eyes.

“How long has this been going on?” Steve asks him.

“I made the armor a little while after I begun rehab,” Tony sheepishly explains. “But I swear, I didn’t start using it before, like, three weeks ago. And mostly I just do it for travelling; it’s electronically shielding. Sentinels, security cameras, the armor reflects all of their signals. You don’t know, Steve,” and now Tony is just rambling, “how many changes the government has made to their systems since my brain became known, okay, they will notice it if I tamper with their equipment, and you know, since the Avengers are pretty public hacking freely in that area isn’t usually a problem, but I thought something more undercover, subtle – “

“Your armor is red and gold,” Steve drawls, “it’s not exactly subtle.”

“N-nah, but, I needed to make it out of gold-titanium, so it could – “

“Titanium? That sounds lightweight and quick and just the right thing for spying – “

“Okay, you know what, mister, I do not appreciate that tone, you were a superhero long before I met you without telling _me_ –“

“That’s not the same, that was before any of us knew,” Steve yells. “Right now we’re Cap and Iron Man, and Iron Man, an official member of the Avengers, has been breaking into places to steal information without _telling_ me.”

“You’d stop me!” Tony counters.

Steve opens his mouth.  
“Yes you would!” Tony continues. “You’d want me to take a team member with me or something – or – or you wouldn’t even want me in the field – “

“Not when you this inexperienced! God damn it, Hawkeye had to start out slow too!”

“His first time was literally attacking the Baxter Building –“

“That was _beyond_ my control –“

“Jewel is –“

“The same thing with Hawkeye – “

“ Oh, admit you’re just waiting to scold the new member until she gets comfortable – “

“ That too – “

“Guys, the police is coming,” Sam interrupts.

Steve glares at the inventor. “Everyone, get in the car, we’ll talk about this later. _You too, Tony._ How much does that thing weigh?”

\----

Halfway home, Steve gets called out to the Mexican Boarder. He makes Tony promise to get the rest of the Avengers home, and instead of Sam he brings Danielle as backup. She’s just as durable as Steve, if not more, and the rest of the Avengers are too close to collapsing. Steve understands. Pietro has a crazy metabolism, Wanda is going through the cold aftershocks of extending her powers, Sam is wounded and Clint had been just plain tired – he had been moving around a lot to accommodate the teleporter soldier.

“Are you ready?” Jewel asks, her tiara and facemask back on, as they stand before a tank station. She’s unusually calm and Steve has gotten the impression that it takes a lot to shake this girl.

“Sure,” Steve affirms, casting one last look at Tony. “Do you have a built-in GPS like Falcon?”

“No,” she says, a little smile appearing beneath the yellow cloth.

“Send me a visual on the landscape from just beneath the freezing zone?” Steve asks Iron Man.

“You know, I don’t need my foot to fly you there,” Sam grumbles.

“You can’t possibly carry me for that long,” Steve gently dismisses.

“She could be an LMD,” Pietro breaks in. “They used to do that a lot in the army. Heck, we don’t even know how Danielle Cage really looks.”

“It’s years ago Rand disappeared. Where has she been all this time?” Clint builds on.

“Now, let’s not attack anyone – “ Tony starts and Danielle interrupts him: “No, they have a good reason to question my motives. I could be an imposter.”

Steve looks at her and kind of believes her anyway. He knows for a fact that Rand had evacuated his goddaughter long before they had captured him. But he too would like to know what Cage’s daughter has been up to. He doubts it’s anything negative, perhaps something useful.

Steve’s phone starts ringing. “Let’s go.”

Clint and Pietro both crosses their arms – however their dislike and competition to each other, they were very similar – Wanda glares obviously at the other girl. Tony looks calm, trusting, but then again he hasn’t been in the field so much.

\----

It’s the blaring alarms for backup, which leads them to the large, isolated butte. The trail of broken Sentinels helped just fine too. The site is far away from civilians and still everything’s hellfire.

“Jewel, stay close,” Steve calls as he runs through the dry area, Jewel a harsh silhouette above him. “Thor?”

There’re no signs of him, but with how the fire is building up, there won’t be any need for a phone call. Yet, if it hadn’t been Thor, who else could it be? As he gets closer, he sees the incoming Sentinels like black spots in the horizon. They need the get the Hell out of here and quick.

“Model 24,” Steve informs. “Take down the Sentinels on the east side, weaknesses underneath armpits and behind kneecaps.”

With a single nod she shoots forward, her fists clenched but something stalling about her determination. He doubts this is her first fight, but something about her tension makes him think she’s a lot more inexperienced than she lets on. He’s probably very lucky that his first recruitments – Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Falcon – had been veterans.

Cage doesn’t have a communicator, so he runs after her blindly, expecting to see a group of superhumans when he arrives and instead he’s taken by surprise. The whole west side of the mountain walls is combed in white. It takes him two long seconds to spot the Sentinels buried underneath the silk-like yarn and then it hits him that it’s spider web.

“Spiderman?” he calls out.

“He’s over here!” Cage replies and as Steve nears, a creeping horror fills his gut. There are over thirty Sentinels here and Spiderman had taken care of them. Probably not easily, but still: something bad must have happened for the boy to unravel either enormous potential or incomprehensible anger. He looks back and the Sentinels can’t be more than a mile away, but then the sky darkens as clouds roll in and Steve sighs in relief. There is a seemingly unending storage of Sentinels at the boarder and confronting the wave coming would be suicide. Hiding would only help them for so long and running would be hard when they were surrounded, so Steve heads to the east side without looking back. When he hears lightning strike down in the distance, he knows that Thor is probably stopping the streams long enough for them to get away. Steve hasn’t fought with Thor a lot, but so far the “god’s” durability and strength had seemed ever going.

Spiderman, though, looks just about the done. His costume is in shreds, blood soaking through the gashes and revealing his white skin, tots of brown hair sticking up through the holes in his mask. “Have my back,” Steve yells to her and as he runs towards the teen, he can hear her fly towards the incoming escapees. Steve hoists the boy up unto his shoulders and turns around, but Thor is flying amidst the swarm of Sentinels now, hunting down the rest of the escapees himself.

Cage picks them up without asking and just shoots away, before their second wave of attackers could arrive. Spiderman all but dangles on Steve’s back, and they have to stop, so Steve can pull off his jacket and secure Spiderman into his safety belts. It’s a little harder than with Franklin, but the boy isn’t very heavy or big for that matter. Steve pulls on the jacket again, hiding the red and marine blue costume underneath his cool azure and as a finishing touch he pulls up the hood to conceal Spiderman’s head.

Cage has just flown them through the second boarder control, when Thor catches up.

He really looks like a god, flying like that with his surging Rosso corsa cape, thunder in his back and wings extended from his helmet. He nears them with speed, but not with the force he uses when he’s about to attack. He probably thinks they’re some lost emigrants in need of help.

Steve waves and Thor tilts up his helmet with a finger and stares at them, Steve awkwardly clinging to Jewel’s side with Spiderman breathing heavily into the nape of his neck.

“Captain,” he greets and then lights up in a grin.

“It’s over, no casualties,” Steve immediately reports and lifts off his hood, so Thor can see Spidey. “Solely mechanical force, contained.”

Thor nods grimly and looks at Spiderman. “This is the man – boy – known for his heroics in the city of New York, aye?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Steve confirms in a low voice. “Let’s not bug him until he’s fully rested, okay? He was obviously escaping the last boarder, so what he came to do has already been done. Thor, could we – “

“Of course, shield brother,” Thor nods. “Fair maiden, do you wish assistance?”

“I could carry Spiderman,” Jewel offers, but Steve does consider the dangers of Jewel’s reliability enough to not wanting to comply. Thor is a brilliant warrior and a good flyer, but his experience of war methods range differently than the modern person’s. Jewel is a quick and a strong aerialist and it’d be easy for her to run off with Spiderman and hand him over to authorities. She’s quiet and there had been ingenuity in her fighting. It wouldn’t surprise Steve if she could outsmart Thor.

So Steve shakes his head and waves a hand towards Thor, who only lifts his eyebrows. Jewel doesn’t protest when she hands him over.

“What’s going on?” Spiderman groans in his neck.

“Relax, Spidey, you’re safe,” Steve assures. “It’s Cap.”

“Oh, hey Cap,” Spidey greets before promptly fainting.

\----

At Thor’s place, Steve gets to meet Dr. Foster, a clumsy particle physicist and astrophysician, who Steve regularly sees on the college student’s magazine cover. She’s only a couple of years older than him and already leading in her field. She’s the kind of example college sets so students taking their major can hate themselves a little more than usual. Spidey is completely faded, and Steve lets him sleep on the cot, while he showers and changes into Thor’s white shirt and roughed up jeans. When he steps out, it’s Donald sitting at the table, leaning into Jane’s side.

Donald lifts his brows, as he looks Steve up and down. “Who’re you?” he asks.

Steve smiles crookedly and lets himself to the fridge. “After all we’ve been through, Doc.”

For once Steve has time to stay and hear about the odd tear between Donald and Thor.

“It’s odd,” Donald says and points to his cane. “That thing is also Thor’s hammer.”  
“So you and Thor are two different people,” Steve confirms more than asks as he chews thoughtfully. “So…” He squints at Jane and Donald. The embrace they’re still sharing doesn’t look very platonic. And he’s pretty sure the smooch Thor and Jane had shared at Thor’s arrival hadn’t been very friend-like either. “Thor is an actual god resting in your body.”

“Well, I guess I started off as a seed of Thor,” Donald hesitantly replies as Steve carefully spreads peanut butter and jam over some slices of toast. “But I developed into someone else. Independent. Now I’m my own. We function as different entities.”

‘Mythology,’ Jane mimes at him and Steve takes it as a cue to leave it like that.

When Danielle joins them ten minutes later, she has also exchanged her uniform into something loose hanging, which must be Donald’s. She still doesn’t show any signs of exhaustion, mahogany brown eyes clear and movements curt and relaxed. Actually, she looks rather refreshed, her hair combed back with gel and her clean cheeks flushed.

Steve takes her silence as confirmation to do the introductions. “Danielle, this is Jane Foster and Donald Blake. Thor isn’t here right now. And this is Danielle Cage – Danny Rand’s goddaughter and the Cages’ daughter. She saved our ass yesterday.”

When the two parties only just look at each other in smile-less silence, Steve clears his throat. “I’m gonna go talk to Spidey.”

He finds Spidey up and going. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it turns out that he faked sleeping.

The boy does not seem to notice him at all as he feverishly tries to fix what seems like some kind of bracelet with a trigger extending to the palm through a spring steel. Steve gently taps the door.

Spidey jumps more than warranted and stares up at Steve. Steve’s never been able to sneak in on anyone since he had gotten the new body, so he doesn’t understand why Spidey’s breathing sounds so heavy beneath the mask. He doesn’t look like he’s about to run away though.

“Who’re you?” the boy asks and Steve can hear that his voice alternator must be destroyed. Steve eyes the bracelets again. The young superhero must be seriously in need of the bracelets to forego the alternator. It could be that Spidey only knows how to fix his bracelets and not his alternator, but his sure moves indicate that he knows these bracelets and knows as simple technology as the voice alternator.

“I’m Steve,” Steve replies softly and walks to the other side of the room to sit down. He closes the door behind him and leans forward with his hands on his knees. “You might know me as Cap.”

Spidey twitches.

“Fury called me,” Steve continues. “You made quite the racket. Amazing job by the way.”

Spidey looks down and his hands start shaking. Steve watches carefully.

“I’m in,” the costumed boy stutters. “Whatever I have to do, I – “

His voice breaks.

Steve realizes that the boy is crying.

“SHRA is going down,” Spidey continues harshly. “I should have done something sooner – “

“It’s not your fault,” Steve immediately replies.

“It is,” Spidey insists. “I mean, who’s supposed to survive with organs missing, it’s not –“

His voice dies out and Steve gets up. Slowly, he takes a seat beside him on the bed. Spidey is tense. “Tell me this from the beginning,” he softly requests.

And Spiderman starts telling about his girlfriend, a student who had worked in Oscorp Enterprises, who had signed a contract to not sue if she was exposed to dangerous chemicals or such. Because of the security protocols at the facility, she had been sure she’d be alright. Turns out it’s hard not to be exposed to chemicals, when Oscorp had poisons the tap water. Apparently most people bought their water, but this ‘Gwen’ had drunken from the fountains. Because of her ambitious goals and her career path, she had had long enough exposure to the water that her cells had started to change.

“It’s the lowest of mutations there is,” Spidey shakes.

Steve frowns. “Fertility?”

Spidey nods. “To her check-ups they started noticing the changes but they didn’t tell her anything. Right until they reported her to H.A.M.M.E.R. H.A.M.M.E.R.! As if she’d sprouted a tail or something. They took her away to do something to her organs and it – she’s in a coma. I hacked into their mainframe, Cap. You know why they took her organs? Research. Apparently fertility is a link to the perfect DNA, the perfect specimen and they – it’s against their own law to just steal them. So they implanted artificial organs in their place.”

Steve stares. How was that…? That couldn’t be possible – or actually, yes, it could. It’d be way to bend the law to their coming. What was one person to them anyway?

“I’m gonna kill them,” Spiderman continues. “Every last one of them.”

For now Steve doesn’t reply, because he knows this. He’s done this, already done exactly what Spiderman wants to do. He can’t tell Spidey that it had only brought him more grief. That the place where Bucky had stood had only gaped wider. Steve can’t tell him that killing these people would only mean that there’s really nothing left then. He can’t tell him that killing the culprits, would only lead to you wanting to kill the spectators and then their superiors and then the people who loved them. Steve can’t tell him, that taking one life would only open up a black hole, needing more, needing more people to _pay_.

It’s a joke really, because they call themselves the Avengers. There’s some pride, some idea of equality and doing justice, when really, the truth is as old and cliché as always: It’s not worth it.

The silence stretches on for a while. Steve eyes the forgotten sandwiches. “Why were you at the boarder?”

Spidey sniffs loudly and Steve crosses the room to get the package of Kleenex on the shelf. He kneels in front of Spiderman and carefully takes the bracelets away.   
“My aunt,” Spiderman says. “If I’m going to fight, I’m not gonna have a gun pointed to her head.”

“Clever,” Steve sighs. “And dumb. You could have both lost your lives.”

“I didn’t trust the businesses doing it under the table,” Spiderman says. “She’s not in her best age.”

“They’re not all equally reliable, no,” Steve agrees. “For another time, contact me. Thor leads his own team, even though you didn’t get to see him in action much.”

Spiderman nods.

“I’m sorry you had to walk around with this alone,” Steve continues. “You didn’t deserve this. And this isn’t your fault.”

“I knew she didn’t have any insurance.”

“None of that,” Steve says. “None of you signed up for that. Come here and let me patch you up.”

He lets Spidey near him on his own and when Spiderman just stands in front of him, Steve reaches out and gently tugs off his shirt. Most of the gashes have healed already, but Steve still takes his time cleaning them.

Meanwhile he turns on the com. “Do you need spare parts for your bracelets?” he asks.

“I’m not sure you have the material – “

“Iron Man?” Steve asks.

“Yeah, Cap?”

“Spiderman needs spare parts. Here you go.” The last bit is for Spiderman who lets Steve hand him the com.

“Hello?” he calls and Steve starts covering the wounds. He doesn’t ask Spiderman to tug off his mask and settles with cleaning the cut on his temple. Spiderman is conversing with Iron Man in something Steve has named ‘Science speak’, and Steve uses the time to clean the worst smudges off his shirt and pants. When they’ve settled on the quantities, they hang up and Spidey hands back the com.

“You know, it’s risky,” Spiderman says. “To show yourself without the mask.”

“That’s true,” Steve replies and thinks of his heated confession about his involvement with the resistance, right in front of Bruce and how he wasn’t sure of Danielle yet and how both Thor, Donald and Jane has seen him now. “Where are you going after this?”

Spiderman shrugs, looking a little embarrassed. “Somewhere. I think I can get a dorm room, if I’m patient enough.”

Steve looks up at him. Of course Spiderman goes to school. “And until then?”

Spiderman shrugs again and Steve sighs, leaning back.

“I can find you a place if you want to keep your identity secret,” he manages even though he hates to let Spidey go with so much vengeance in him. “Fury has a long list of safe houses around Outer New York. I have the access code to most of them. You can pick one close to your school, but you’ll have to manage food and warmth on your own. You can stay there, just don’t let Fury know.”

“Why would you risk that for me?” Spidey asks silently.

Steve sighs and ruffles his hair. “I can’t just abandon you, Spidey. Maybe that’s why most of the Avengers are staying with me. I want you to feel and be safe. Maybe that’s why I let you see my face,” he explains and then smiles reassuringly when Spidey looks away. “It’s okay.”

Spidey nods but he’s shaking again and Steve pulls him in with an arm. “It’s okay. Come here.”

After all, Spidey’s just a kid.

\----

Steve makes Jean Grey do a head scan on Danielle 6 am. Danielle is quite grim about it despite her understanding and when Steve leaves, Jean is reassuring the girl that nothing Jean sees will leave the room. Throughout the wait, Steve is making rounds in the Jean Grey Mutant Academy – concealed in bare sight in New Manhattan – and is checking the places Spiderman would most likely want to stay, when Danielle comes out. She seems a little shaken and Steve nods to the female mutant.

“I owe you one,” Steve thanks the woman and she shakes her head.

“No Captain. You don’t,” she smiles, a little sadly.

He nods once but doesn’t believe her.

As soon as they’re a little away from the academy, Danielle ducks behind some bushes and starts throwing up. She doesn’t comment and he tries to stay close without touching her. As soon as they get to the train station and Steve buys them a ticket, Steve can hear a small ‘Pssst’. He blinks and turns his head.

“No, _up_.”

Both of them stares up.

A thin boy, with brown messy hair and hazel eyes is, honest to god, sticking to the station ceiling, waving. Steve looks down. “That’s kind of risky, isn’t it.”

Spidey scoffs. “Nobody ever looks up. Anyway, I’m in.”

With this sentence he jumps off the ceiling and lands in Steve’s arms. “I want to be an Avenger.” And then with a little smile, he locks his arms around Steve’s neck. “Take me, I’m yours!”

\----

When they finally, finally come home, it’s smelling like ratatouille and there are tall towers of takeout. Tony is sitting on the main couch, most of the Avengers scattered all over the floor, staring at the news. The engineer hasn’t succeeded in deleting all the tape, because there’s a minute clip repeating itself on the news, a close-up of Pietro running on the train cars.

Tony looks up from something glowing in his arms and then frowns. “You picked two up in one trip? Impressive, Captain.”

“Oh my god,” Peter gasps in obvious fanboy awe and then just completely freezes. Danielle nonchalantly grabs a box of Chinese and sits down between Clint and Wanda, which is pretty brilliant. Steve knows she would be strong enough to break up a fight and calm enough to not get affected by the hot tempers.

Steve turns his head and looks at Peter, who’s still looking at Tony with wide eyes.

“I’ve got your parts, kiddo,” Tony calls out and Peter drops the awestruck look and blushes furiously.

“Gimme,” Falcon says, waving a hand at Pietro who slips him a Lincoln.

Steve rolls his eyes and when Peter still seems stuck, he puts an arm around his shoulder and pulls him closer to the crowd. “This is Peter Parker, we know him as Spiderman. He’ll be part-time on the team.” Steve makes quick introductions, before his focus is taken by the odd stillness of the place. No pipes shrieking or doors creaking or static humming.

“Tony,” Steve says and Tony sighs, gets up and pecks him on the lips.

“Yes, darling?” Tony smiles up at him.

“What have you done –“

Tony snaps his fingers and Steve is blinded by golden-peach light because of course that’s Tony’s way of presenting. Steve looks up in time to see that what used to be the ceiling, has become many meters of glass-like scale mail. The scale turns in a domino-effect, like watching the wind flip the leaves over to their paler side. The scales are transparent and looking up at the street and the dawning sky is like watching from beneath a water surface. It recalls something unpleasant for him, but mostly the beauty of the view strikes him.

“It’s run by sun light. I know sunlight only technically hits us at dawn, but a morning charge up should sustain the rest of the day,” Tony explains. “The twins helped me do it. I put up the Raven material and made sure it could hold, before Wanda spread magic-y goo goo all over the old ceiling – hey, our sorcerer is way cooler than the Illuminati’s, right? – and Pietro helped me clean it up. It’s reflective and there were only about five inches of dirt above, so it’s not likely that someone will notice the difference. Also, I finished the table.”

Falcon and Pietro scoots away from the table as if they know what’s coming already and the glass surface Tony has covered the table with, flickers, and a hologram is thrown up into the air.

“It’s set like one of my computers, but less likelier to get tracked and less likelier to be used as a playing forum or for social media,” he explains and emphasizes the last sentence, glaring at Clint who just sniffs.

“What…?” Steve begins but Tony is over him again.

“Also, I’ve fixed the walls so they’ve become thinner. Notice how this place has become a bit bigger? Look, slide effect.” He walks over to Steve’s bedroom door, which looks exactly the same, except it doesn’t have a door handle any longer, but a little lock.

Tony puts his thumb on the lock and slides the door like he’s just unlocking his StarkPhone screen. All the pipes and loud temperature meters are gone. It’s so weirdly silent. But the room is evidently bigger now. “I was thinking of refurnishing,” Tony hums, looking around. “And to make it the girls’ room. You obviously don’t care where you sleep and I don’t think Danielle owns the army’s lack of shame when it comes to nudity. Well, unless she doesn’t care either. But I think it would be good for Wanda to have something for herself.”

Steve can only dazedly nod. “You did this out of your pocket.”

It isn’t a question but Tony answers anyway. “Honestly, all of this just came from the dumpsite Stark Industries have. Also, I bought it with my Stark Resilient money, so it’s not like it can go back to Dad.”

“Oh my god,” Steve says, holding his face. He’s pretty sure he’s going to faint.

“Wait, don’t do that, eat first, I ordered take out,” Tony chatters and hurries him back to the living room.

Steve shakes his head. “I’ve already eaten. What are you working on?”

Tony looks at the glowing thingy. “Uh, a backup generator. Or a main generator, since the one we have sucks. I mean the outlets we have can only charge with 70 watt, max. Do you understand what pain in the ass that has been throughout my process? I could have finished the table the second day. I mean, I respect y’all’s ‘Caves are safe’ thing, but that doesn’t mean we have to be cavemen, geez.”

The grudging way Wanda sends him a glare, means this fight has already been fought and settled.

“You’re crazy,” Steve laughs and pulls Tony in, who still looks disgruntled but openly interested in kisses. “You’ve been doing this in the fifteen hours I was gone, and you’re crazy and amazing, Tony. I don’t know what to say.”

“You could kiss me,” Tony smiles and Steve returns the gesture, bowing down to give Tony a fond kiss.

Wanda wails and Peter steals the generator.

Tony pulls back and all amusement crawls out of his face. His doe eyes become round and his thin lips pout. He’s pulling his best Puppy Face, a face Steve has only seen the boy unleash when he talked shit at professors and when he wanted to ask his Dad something. Steve has always wondered how it had always worked so well, being so blatantly obvious.

He thinks he’s starting to see.

“There is just one thing, Steve…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Steve gets invited to Stark family dinner!


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dad looks just about to roll his eyes and Steve’s small smile tells them that he hasn’t missed the exchange - suppose living with a bunch of metahuman rebels do that to you – when Steve’s smile drops. His eyes widen considerably and then he pointedly looks away. Tony frowns in confusion, but Dad catches Steve’s face expression and looks back at Tony. Something fearful fills his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a shorter chapter from Tony's POV to change things up a bit.

Steve keeps twitching.

Tony holds his boyfriend’s hand as Happy brings them directly through security and he watches Steve suppress his fight or flight instinct. His button down is ironed and buttoned almost embarrassingly high and at one point Steve actually texts Sam to change something in his will. Which is ridiculous, okay? It’s just family dinner. It’s not like Steve hasn’t met all of the attendants before: Dad, Pepper, Happy and Bruce.

Sure, it’s a little more official in the boyfriend-meets-parents sort of way, and okay, Steve did break up with Tony in front of Bruce, but it isn’t like Bruce hadn’t known what state Steve had been in. And Dad had been sad that Tony had been sad about the breakup – and then of course enraged about that ‘stupid boy not making up his mind’, when they reconciled. And Pepper understood the whole break-up-to-make-up thing “the youths” got going for them. And Happy had only looked a bit grim when he came to pick Tony and Steve up.

Okay, so maybe Tony’s family is a little strong, personality-wise. So what. It isn’t like Steve is a pushover himself, even though Tony suspects that Steve is trying his best to be a nobody when he’s not wearing the cowl (it doesn’t work. The school board knows him as incredibly conscientious and kind fellow, even if he seems “a little unapproachable and reserved”). It’s not like the strays Steve has gathered isn’t an explosive mix themselves. Yesterday, while waiting for Steve, Danielle and Peter to return, Sam had supposedly been instructed by Steve to show Clint a few moves, which had ended up as a serious brawl, Tony had to put on the suit to break them up, since the others had just been chanting encouragements. There had been around 10 minutes of peace, before Wanda had wanted to use milk for a cleaning mask, but Pietro had drunk it all and as everyone had been shouting about who’s milk it was and what it could be used for, it had hit Tony that the fuckers were hungry and therefore grumpy. They were hungry so they had become loud – for god’s sake, there were no better than Pepper’s 1-year old! So he had ordered out. So what it had been from a healthy, a little wealthier place and Danielle and Sam had to help him carry it all home. He had destroyed the receipt no one has to know.

“They’re not gonna kill you,” Tony says, trying to sound reassuring. The privacy screen is up, but Steve is still stiff.

“No, they’re just going poke around and look into my background and scoff at my ugly nails,” Steve mutters and then stares at his nails. Which are nice and cut, like the rest of his goddamn appearance. Steve has used ten intensive minutes removing the dirt from underneath them.

“Is this about you being poor?” Tony sighs. “Because you’re not poor, you know. You just live poor.”

“The money ain’t mine,” Steve says, chewing his lip. “They’re for debt.”

“Bruce has been homeless most of his adult life,” Tony supplies, which finally makes Steve look at him.S

Steve smiles cheekily. “Am I your Bruce to your Howard?”

“You need the oversize clothes, cute wrinkling nose habit and the angry alter ego,” Tony suggests and then makes a surprised face. ”Oh, wait.”

It works, Steve laughs even as his eyes are doing their imperceptible darting routine. It had annoyed Tony in the beginning, but as they had gotten to know each other a little better and Tony had learned about the heavy shadows sometimes taking over Steve’s face, he had learned to accept it. And, honestly, Tony suspects that he’s starting to do the same.

So, Tony’s distraction has worked and Steve hasn’t yet yelled at him for the armor stunt. Tony had waited for the storm and maybe some angry sex, but Steve had been calm and saved his energy on the publication of the Negative Zone prisoners. The video had been uncommented from Cap’s side, but the Internet and furthermore, the government, had completely lost it. Next day Captain America’s YouTube had liked the Stark Resilient commercial for Tony’s untraceable computers. The commercial had been a long awaited announcement, the computer user-friendly and one of SR’s main products, so there had been a large audience waiting for it already, and then Captain America likes the video, directing his 3 million subscribers to the product. This morning the numbers on pre-orders had been flooding into Tony’s brain, making him dizzy and Dad had suggested putting a discount for students, which had led to even bigger success, and the best thing? No investors have the power over him. No council. There are only stockholders.

It _had_ led Dad to call him up 3 am and ask why the Hell a vigilante is promoting his computers. Tony had tried to make it a joke and said that Dad was just jealous because Tony got free publicity. Dad hadn’t found it funny.

Tony doesn’t see why his Dad is mad. After all, he’s doing the exact same as Dad does. If he gets to be a reckless asshole, so does Tony.

Of course then, there is Pepper who won’t take any of their shit. Bless Happy’s soul for at least keeping her happy one half of her waking hours.

The car pulls to a stop and they ride the elevator up. Steve is loosening up, and looking increasingly more relaxed. Tony doesn’t believe it. That’s Steve’s battle face, the mask all of them carry everyday to look normal. Don’t speak loud, keep your eyes down and if someone is staring at you, pretend you’re busy.

Tony pinches Steve’s ass and Steve yelps. Happy looks back at them. Tony pulls his innocent face and Steve smiles back warmly, putting his arm around Tony’s waist.

“Don’t worry,” Tony coos up at him as they walk. “Pepper locked Dad’s armory.”

“I love you,” Steve smiles down at him. “So much that from now on? You can only drink caffeine in healthy doses.”

“You wouldn’t,” Tony grins and pinches his boy’s nose.

“I would,” Steve laughs back, his eyes completely serious.

Tony fake laughs so Happy won’t start overthinking, internally cursing at Steve. “Well then, there goes the hot water.”

“I don’t need to fight you. Our landlady will take care of that for me.”

Tony makes a face, because he can only imagine what Wanda would do to him if he took away the hot water.

When they reach the top of the Tower, Steve gets his usual harassing checkup and Tony remembers Pepper’s hint about how his guy had been afraid to cross the glass bridge. Without saying anything, he takes Steve’s hand and Steve sticks close to Tony, as if Tony would somehow hold them both up if the bridge decided to give. Maybe Tony could, if he could call the armor simultaneously. Well, that’d crave some kind of tracking device, perhaps bracelets. Tony can work on it, but that kind of programming would crave using the lab and Tony has enough trouble hiding the armor as it is.

As soon as they enter the foyer, the sweet smell of spiced apples fills their nose and JARVIS says: “Welcome Sir. Mr. Hogan. Steve.”

Steve looks surprised for a second, looking up at the ceiling, but then he smiles. “Hey JARVIS. How are you?”

“I am functioning at my highest capacity, since the elder Sir did a wholesome upgrade to my system this morning, and finally let me dispose of old, self-detected errors in my code.”

“No awkward glitches for you,” Steve nods and Tony knows now that this isn’t just politeness, and still it’s hard to believe how naturally Steve believes in JARVIS as creature with sentience, a sense of self. “I’m really happy to hear that.”

It’s going to be fine. Maybe Steve doesn’t know all the proper social etiquettes of their society group, but he does know how to be good to people.

“What’s Brucie making, J?” Tony asks, pulling Steve by the arm to remind him that JARVIS is connected anywhere.

“Doctor Banner have just finished dessert and is letting it cool in the fridge, Sir,” JARVIS informs. “Mrs. Potts is conversing with your father in the living room. I have informed him of your arrival.”

“No way dodging it then,” Tony sighs and looks up at Steve. “Are you sure you wanna go?”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs, looking resolute. “I can’t avoid him forever. Besides, he’s probably getting tired of you sleeping at my place.”

The word ‘annoyed’ might be a better word for it. Until New York Tony had been spending a lot of time with his Dad. They share the workshop and even though Dad’s acquaintances and Tony’s few friends and flings have all been in their home, it had always just been the two of them. And now, when Tony is with the rest of the Avengers and starting to sleep over (like he never did with Rhodey or Tiberius or at any party), Dad is starting to make a fuss out of it, getting crumps in his moustache and making passive-aggressive comments about never spending enough time at home.

“Hey Pep,” Tony greets because she’s the first one in his line of sight, and actually misses his Dad at first. His old man normally doesn’t sit in the tall chair, only when business partners decide to drop by uninvited and his father needs to intimidate them.

“Mrs. Potts,” Steve nods with a hesitant smile before turning to look at Dad. “Mr. Stark.”

“Steve,” Dad grudgingly greets. Which is process, really.

And Steve visibly suppresses a smile, because he can also hear that grudging _acceptance_ in Dad’s voice. “How have you been?” Steve asks, as if he hasn’t been stalking Dad’s back for weeks now.

“Just peachy,” Dad snaps.

“Oh, I’m glad,” Steve cheerfully replies. He turns his head and looks at Pepper. “And you?”

“I’m fine, thank you for asking, Steve,” Pepper smiles.

And Tony sees the way Steve stops blinking for a second, his eyes unwavering and unblinking as he does a second scan and takes in Pepper’s pale face and the dark rings she hasn’t quite successfully concealed. Empathy glints in his eyes for a second and Tony loves that, loves Steve’s compassion. But he hates the way Steve can’t turn it off, can’t step out of Captain America. Still, Steve has never called Tony’s family the “enemy”. The other Avengers had not held themselves back there.

And Tony should understand that, that these people are the real victims here and he shouldn’t feel hurt about them pointing out their oppressors. Some things are really that black and white. It’s a chessboard and they’re all players. Tony knows most of the superheroes from up close; he’s _seen_ their humanity, a thing he’s not always sure he’s glad about. It’s a privilege, and still it’s a barrier, which keeps him from blindly throwing stones. Tony can see why they did what they did.

Steve wouldn’t get that, picking the lesser evil. He couldn’t ever imagine compromising like that.

Bruce says that dinner is ready and greets Steve once they’re sitting in the kitchen. They have a dining room, but never use it; it’s too big and too impersonal.

Once they sit at the kitchen table, Bruce immediately makes eye contact. Since Tony found out that Bruce had joined the Illuminati, he had kind of avoided Bruce. He loves Bruce, he cares for him, respects him much, but Tony’s image of him is of a person with his issues, but who has always used his powers for good.

But Bruce hadn’t been able to beat the Illuminati, not in the way he wanted. So he had joined them. And Tony is so endlessly disappointed with that. Tony can tell Steve feels that way too, and wonders why Steve hasn’t brought it up. Maybe Steve just wants to forget about it. Tony’s sure Steve could use hours of video time scolding superheroes on what they did wrong, but still he chooses to forget. They all know it’s a waste of time asking why, and looking for reasons that are not there.

Dinner proceeds as Tony has predicted. Pepper and Bruce make small talk. Steve listens with polite interest. The conversation runs smoother when it turns out that Steve and Bruce are both very much into the farmer market and that Pepper and Steve both love art very much. They talk about the Metropolitan and Steve nods along silently, until Pepper gets suspicious and Steve admits it hasn’t visited the museum for years.

“I’d just rather spend my time on something else,” Steve shrugs.

“Well, if you appreciate New York art, then what’s wrong with the Metropolitan?” Pepper asks, and he can see that she’s ready to make a discussion about this.

“The art is excellent and made by a wide range of individuals, but if we put the pictures of them, we’d…” He looks around the table and finally at Tony. They’ve talked about the museum before, and he’s not going to stop Steve from doing Steve. So Tony lifts his eyebrows, and Steve smiles with that radiating warmth in his eyes he has started to show. Tony still doesn’t understand how he could make someone so happy, but he knows that he will fight for it.

Steve looks at Pepper. “It doesn’t actually represent NY – or anything sociologic, really. We might not be an international central point anymore, but we’re still a multicultural big city where the female population makes up 52 percent. So why is it that over 90 percent of the artists there are white males, and over 75 percent of the portrayed women in the museum are naked? Not that I mind either, but combined and on that high a level, isn’t that kind of worrying?”

There’s a second where Pepper is just looking at him and Bruce starts chuckling.

“I told you he wasn’t all brawn,” Tony tells his father.

“Oh, I am,” Steve assures, because he thinks he can still save his Dumb Ex-Quarterback image. “It just doesn’t really take a genius to figure out.”

“Just give up the Dumb Blond-act, Steve,” Tony grins and Steve sends him a sharp glance, which is unwarranted, because 1) Steve can’t even hide his intellect among frat boys, how the Hell is he supposed to among geniuses. 2) If Tony gets his way (which he knows he will), Steve will be spending a lot more time with his family, which means that he isn’t going to be able to keep up that facade.

It’s not like Tony doesn’t see why Steve needs to keep it, but Tony has sorted out Steve’s fake profile himself. Made it from the bottom, code after code, not even Dad is going to find any errors. Hell, Dad taught him how to find those errors himself instead of bedtime stories.

“A dumb blond wouldn’t have kept you entertained for this long,” Happy dares to tease and Steve loosens up in a smile. “Remember Malibu?”

Tony smiles back tightly, prepared to make Happy’s phone turn on with all the porn Tony can find, when the driver jumps, Pepper coughing to conceal the yelps.

_Thank you, Pep._

Dad looks just about to roll his eyes and Steve’s small smile tells them that he hasn’t missed the exchange - suppose living with a bunch of metahuman rebels do that to you – when Steve’s smile drops. His eyes widen considerably and then he pointedly looks away. Tony frowns in confusion, but Dad catches Steve’s face expression and looks back at Tony. Something fearful fills his eyes.

“Tony, close your eyes,” Dad breaks out and Tony does it without thinking about it. Back in Malibu, when Tony had had issues controlling Extremis, it had been Dad’s way of saying that his sclera is changing color.

“I haven’t – “ Tony begins and his vision goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fact about the Metropolitan is true. Now I know the last recount was in 2005, which is 9 years ago in the fic and there's been a few exhibitions dedicated to other things, but (as far as I know, let me know if my assumption is wrong) not much has changed. 
> 
> Anyway, drop a comment, it's much appreciated ^^


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the ever-wonderful [Renae](http://agentshnucumbs.tumblr.com/), who betaed a bit of this chap :D

To see Tony use Extremis at the dinner table while Steve is there is not a surprise. That Tony will show this to his family is definitely a shock since they’ve already established that Tony’s boyfriend shouldn’t know that his sweetheart’s brain is a supercomputer.

The sudden fear on Mr. Stark’s face tells Steve that something far worse than Tony slipping, is happening.

Tony slams his face into his empty plate and throws his whole body back in an arch, falling off the chair. While Steve is in shock, his body still remembers to pull away the table so the genius won’t hurt himself on it further. Tony is rolling and twisting on the floor, heaves and drools, his eyes blinking in fits of black sclera and pupil-less brown irises. Pepper whips up her phone and calls up the Stark medical team. A wet spot is forming on his pants, and Steve is just staring in helplessness at the seizure, until Mr. Stark has reached Tony’s side.

The major stockholder of Stark Industries certainly don’t think this is merely a seizure, because he immediately cups Tony’s head with his hands, bending the ears forward to look at the neurochips, catching a glimpse of them, right until Tony throws him away as if he’s made of rags. Steve barely spares a thought to Tony’s enhanced strength factor, before he interferes. He sits down and grabs Tony’s writhing body, locks his right arm around Tony’s head and down under his chin and pushes his left arm down under Tony’s armpit to lock with his right fist, his legs wrapping around Tony’s waist, holding Tony’s body in a lock. “ Do it now. ”

Mr. Stark doesn’t waste time, bows down and presses his left fingers on one of the neurochips, twists, and digs his right hand down on where Tony’s soft spot used to be. A moment, then two and Tony stops moving, abruptly loosening up. Steve is breathing louder than he thought. “You have a  resetting function on your son?! ” he exclaims, and gently untangles his limbs from Tony’s body. Mr. Stark glares at him, but doesn’t answer. 

He leans back and looks down on Tony’s face resting against his chest. Trails of blood from Tony’s mouth have striped his chin and Steve gingerly loosens the brunette’s jaws, tilting his head down to let the blood leave his mouth. He looks into Tony’s mouth. The source of blood thankfully comes from the boy clamping his teeth into his tongue. Steve’s sure that Extremis will heal it before Tony loses too much blood. The skin of Tony’s brow bones is swelling, but isn’t split.

“How long did it take, JARVIS?” Dr. Banner asks, creeping into the circle Steve and Mr. Stark is making.

“2 minutes and 2 seconds, Dr. Banner,” the electronic butler replies. It had felt longer. It could’ve lasted longer if Mr. Stark hadn’t done something. “I’ve received no messages or signals, that’d indicate the seizure coming from an outside source.”

“I’m gonna take him down to my lab,” Dr. Banner says. “Please dismiss the medical team, Pepper.”

Steve helps Dr. Banner bring Tony down to the lab and unload him on the examination table. While Dr. Banner takes blood samples, Steve pulls off Tony’s clothes and cleans him before he switches out Tony’s underwear and shrugs on the cotton gown Dr. Banner hands him. It’d kill Tony to know, but it isn’t something Steve hasn’t seen before. Dr. Banner says he’s going to do a bone marrow biopsy and instructs Steve to sit down. Steve does as he’s told anxiously.

“You don’t seem very shaken,” Dr. Banner nonchalantly says, pressing his free hand into the small of Tony’s back, even if the teenager isn’t moving. “You’ve done this before?”

Tony’s tongue has stopped bleeding, leaving congealed crusts on his chapped lips. Steve takes some wet wipes and cleans the lips. “I grew up with a boy, Ricky, who had epilepsy. We took turns when he was too exhausted to do anything.”

Dr. Banner nods, pulling out the biopsy needle and pressing tissues on the bleeding mark. “How is he doing now?”

“He’s dead.” The disabled never lasted long in the orphanage. Sometimes money would run out, and the caretakers would call for the suits. The suits would give the orphanage money and medicine for another three months and they couldn’t let the person experimented on miss school nor work. Only mild experimentation was allowed on a group and more severe experiments could only be done on one person. The casualties weren’t normally high enough for someone to try to run away.

Epilepsy is one of those diseases, not even the rich can protect themselves against and therefore there had been a larger investment on finding a cure or better treatment. Ricky had been the perfect target, and held out for six whole months before dying suddenly during a shower after a baseball game. Steve heard rumors that a seizure had suddenly twisted and broken his neck. The suits came to take the body. When someone died, the suits always said that the orphanage should be honored, and that they were changing medical history and that Ricky’s sacrifice wouldn’t be taken for granted. And yet, here they are, ten years later, epilepsy as real as ever and Steve wonders how many other Rickys there might have been.

Bucky always made sure that Steve wasn’t present when he was sick and the suits came. Even when the suits found out about Steve’s bad health, they had decided that Steve wasn’t worth an investment, because his body was just so weak, that even if they made a breakthrough, the samples couldn’t be applied to people of regular build and health. He’s lucky, he supposes.

Steve cleanses Tony’s face. The swollen brows are already fading into a yellow healing bruise. He pretends he doesn’t notice, and paces the lab, occasionally feeling less useless when he helps Banner position Tony, so he can do a thorough body examination. He starts arguing when Banner wants to do a MRI.

Dr. Banner assures him that the machines are custom-made for Tony’s implants and reminds Steve that there will be radiation in here and it won’t be a safe place for Steve to be. Steve doubts that radiation can do much more to him that most of the things that should be able to kill him, but he nods and leaves the lab. JARVIS suggests Steve that he spends the night in Tony’s bedroom, and Steve politely declines to go take laps in the indoor swimming pool. Two hours later, the AI politely coughs and informs him, that young Sir is in a coma and Dr. Banner doesn’t know how to wake him up.

\----

He lets himself into Dr. Banner’s office and says he has got to go to work, he can’t afford not to, his rent is due. Banner narrows his eyes at him, knowing exactly what Steve is going to do, and that’s why Steve tells him instead of JARVIS. If he did that, Mrs. Potts and worse, Mr. Stark, is going to see it as some sort of disloyalty, and maybe it is.

But Tony doesn’t need Steve Rogers right now. Captain America might just be a petty vigilante, but he still has connections.

So there are four possibilities right now.

1)  Maybe Mr. Stark could hire the right people. But no one knows more about Extremis than Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner, so how are outsiders going to do better? At best, Mr. Stark might be able to do something himself, but Steve doesn’t invest too much hope in that – if Dr. Banner, a genius physician and biochemist doesn’t know what to do, Steve doubts an engineer can do better. Steve gives JARVIS his number and tells the AI to contact him if something happens anyway.

2)  A second possibility is Reed Richards. He built the neurochips after all, which means he must have had some kind of idea of how Extremis functions. But Mr. Fantastic has been out of touch for months now. No one has been able to get to him, not even Mr. Stark. And if Richards is going to help, Captain America isn’t the person to show up at his doorstep.

3)  T’Challa. His people or himself might not know of Extremis or the neurochips, but if someone is advanced enough in their technology knowledge to learn it and fix it, it’d be them. It’d also mean that Tony’s brain would become a more widespread secret. Steve can’t imagine Mr. Stark telling any more people about it than those who had to know. Tony could be become a weak spot or something to be manipulated with. Then again, a dead Tony or vegetable Tony aren’t that great options either. And even if T’Challa agrees to help, Steve has no idea of how he’s supposed to track the king down. Earlier the Wakandan always just connected to their com system – Tony could block him out, but T’Challa would always connect to them without issues. This never went both ways.

4)     If all hope is out, Steve is definitely sure that there might be some Atlantean technology out there which is able to at least help Tony reboot. Steve doesn’t know a thing about technology or Atlantean technology for that matter, but Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner are probably able to use something. Atlantis is supposedly ruined, but Steve knows that the sick Atlanteans have been collecting them in Old Manhattan, and rumor has it that Kingpin’s people have gotten their hands on some through Central Station and are selling them all around.

Steve picks up his costume and takes the subway right back to New Manhattan. So far his immediate options don’t seem as faultless as he’d liked, and that’s probably because he can’t narrow it down like that, into four separate choices. He needs to  think .

\----

Under Wakandan protection or not, Somali-British Americans on extended visa do leave a trail, and the most recent address Steve has been able to track down is in the coming Chinatown district, New Manhattan. It has taken years for the district to form since the old version drowned with the rest of Old Manhattan. The build-up of the elevated city has taken a lot of resources and to this day, taxes are still spent on the construction work of the transportation system to and from New Manhattan. When designing the city, the state had also decided to build larger, more modern buildings with huge apartments; the rent skyrocketed and the New Manhattan Fee is understandable, but a high cost. These conditions ended up filtering out many old inhabitants of Chinatown. But now it’s slowly coming together, the apartments split up with fake walls and the streets filled up with shops. 

The streets are as colored and spangled as his uniform, and Steve holds no illusions that the place isn’t watched. His blue military jacket (which is really wearing down, he needs to find a new one soon) is covered with a grey hoodie, the hood pushed up over the blue one. He has put on fingerless black gloves over his own red ones, and he wears Nike-dupes instead of his boots. He keeps near the rooftops, even as most of them are, in fact, guarded. Every time he speeds up the shoes start to slip off, so he has to practice the act of sneaking around.

The Galmaan house is placed shyly in a corner of makeup and hair stores, and Steve shyly hides behind a banner to stare at the windows. He takes a deep breath and sends the signal.

A minute later, a window is cracked open and Faizah sticks her upper body out, coolly glancing around.

She’s thinner than in the photograph, her cheekbones sharp and ready to cut, shoulders curled in on themselves in tenseness. Unlike Dani’s cinnamon complexion, Faizah is very dark-skinned. For a second he can’t really spot what about her he finds odd, but after a second of wonder, it grazes him that her eyes are far from the same he saw in the photographs. They had previously been almost black, but now they’re – a golden curry color. They reflect the little light shining on her, making them look eerie and ferocious. 

He pulls back and holds his breath. There are side effects to being in Negative Zone, but it seems like her mutation has… developed? But how? Experiments? No, neither Reed nor Mr. Stark would’ve let that happen. And Steve is pretty sure that her slight mutation hadn’t been progressive on its own. 

The Negative Zone is known for leaching energy off its prisoners, but during Sentry’s stay there some part of him had only been strengthened. What could have triggered her mutation…? 

Maybe - probably: Radiation. It’s always radiation when it comes to superheroes. So, what did that usually signify? Her eyes have changed color and quality. So perhaps all of her senses have been enhanced. Either way, Steve needs to lure her out here. 

Steve slowly starts whistling the melody of “Can you hear the people sing?”. He has never himself seen  Les Miserables,  but he knows the parades and demonstrations she has been active in had sung the song plenty of times. 

Five minutes later, Steve’s sitting on a trash container and she’s standing in front of him with crossed arms. She’s beautifully dressed in colors of dusk, a midnight blue hijab with orange sparkles, a black tunic with golden thread lining and dark purple jeans. Through the dresswear he can see the slightly inhuman posture of her body, the muscles working in her arms, shoulders and legs, the curling of her spine. 

“Hello,” he carefully greets and pulls down the gray hood.

“Didn’t need to do that, the bandana gave you away,” she rolls her eyes, and he’s caught by surprise with her British accent. He hasn’t heard it in real life since Peggy. “I expected you earlier than this, considering the effort you put into my release.”

He shrugs. “Your uncle seems like the overprotective sort,” he answers. “I wanted to avoid a Wakandan invasion.”

“They do tend to forget that fighting should come after the talking,” she smiles at him and she relaxes slightly, her stance becoming more human. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Well, first off I wanted to offer you a spot in the Resistance again,” he says, nervousness abruptly clogging his throat. Her blog posts have inspired and been source many of his videos. “You’ve been protesting before it was popular, and your blogging – before it got taken down – really did spread a valuable lesson around. I know Anonymous has salvaged some of it, actually. I know T’Challa wants you exported and that you just got released from prison, and I fully understand if you don’t want to get caught in this business again – I mean, I know your father is sick and you might, I don’t know, want to settle down, it’s just the Resistance can provide you protection this time, and -“ He stops himself and breathes out. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

“I didn’t imagine Captain America to be a stuttering fanboy,” she laughs. “Second off?”

He exhales. “Do you know what happened to Tony Stark this evening?”

“I’m afraid not,” she frowns. “News don’t travel quickly when you live behind a wall of bodyguards and is forbidden to leave the area. Wait, does it have something to do with him almost jumping off a building?”

Steve makes a face. “I don’t he was going to jump. Explained shortly, the circumstances of his Registration are oversimplified. He’s not only a genius, an … experiment in his youth changed his brain, so it developed technopathic qualities. After the Avengers’ raid on Baxter Building, he was accused of being the master hacker Iron Man, but because of lack of proof they settled with installing neurochips into his brain, so they could scan it for information and, well. Destroy his brain if needed be.”

“They did.  What .” Steve likes her right away, because her face - as tired as it is - immediately crumples with disgust and rage. Despite her history she hasn’t become jaded, and still feels compassion. 

“He’s in a coma. There are only a few people who can help him. The safest bet is Reed. But nobody can talk to him.”

“You want me guilt trip him,” she says, her brows disappearing into her scarf. “You want to manipulate him by using me, a little activist who’s been innocently imprisoned in his own tower.”

He makes a face and is about to excuse himself, when she snorts: “Weak. Is that all you’ve come up with?”

He glares. “It’s not a nice thing to do.”

“I really don’t want to be nice to Reed,” she admits. “But why can’t you do it? Didn’t you literally take a bullet for him?” And when he looks surprised, she says: “There’s television for the young prisoners.”

“Oh,” he says. “Well. That’s probably why you don’t know that the Fantastic Four split up because I kind of helped Fury deport Invisible Woman and their son.”

“Ah, I see the problem,” she grins, looking inappropriately pleased. “Well then, Captain, lead the way. Don’t look like that, I can keep up.”

He nods and starts running.

Not only does she keep up; she’s also faster than him and her jumps are higher and longer than his and she’s so flexible that by the time they’re at Baxter Building, she has lost her shoes and socks and her jeans are ripped at the seams. She’s happy though, chatty, and looks more alive like this.

Her mascara and liner is running as they walk into the foyer in plain costume and asks the recipient to see Richards. The receptionist looks shocked and directs them to Roberta on the FF’s reception floor and opens up the elevator for them. 

“Wait, what are you doing?” Faizah asks as he follows her. “You can’t go up with me. It might be a trap.”

“I’m not letting you go up there alone,” Steve protests. “All scientists are mad scientists, everyone knows that.”

“See, that’s why you can’t go,” she says. “You’ll be too judgmental and he’ll feel attacked.”

“ I will be too judgmental?” he repeats, because if there’s one thing he has learned during their trip, it’s that she possesses just as big an uncompromising moral compass as he does. “Are you crazy, T’Challa will kill me if something happens to you,” Steve argues.

“ Astaghfirullah , no, he will kill Reed and sue the government for touching me,” she sniffs and steps into the elevator. 

“I was the one who brought you into this.” Steve follows her, but before the doors have any time to close, two hands grab their collars and yank them back. Steve thrusts himself loose just as Faizah yowls in a definitely not human way. He turns around and sees Black Panther with his arms crossed, looking very dark and big and intimidating.

“What on Earth are you doing here?” T’Challa demands to know.

“Tony Stark is in a coma,” Faizah dead-on strikes. “We need Reed to – “

“Howard’s son is in a coma?” T’Challa repeats.

Steve nods. “That explains his thirty missed calls?”

“And you’re dragging my niece into this?” the Panther asks.

“Get off your high horse, I was doing this long before you even knew I was your niece,” she snaps. “At least I’m helping –“

“If you could have just called me first I’d done it,“ T’Challa shoots back. “I don’t know why any of you at any point believed I wouldn’t help someone in need, just because I didn’t want to - ”

“Your Highness,” Steve says, carefully not picking up that discussion right now. “Are you going to help?”

Something about the fearsome curl on Faizah’s lips as she awaits his answer, makes T’Challa nod once and call his people. Steve doesn’t know what he’s saying, but he’s watching Faizah while he does it, so maybe something is giving. 

Three hours later, Steve and Faizah is sitting in front of Stark Tower with plastic bags of falafel and durum and watching a group of confused Wakandan scientists shooed into the foyer by T’Challa. Steve’s heart is pounding and he feels afraid and vulnerable and angry at the same time, all underneath a thick blanket of fatigue.

“I’m a painkiller,” Faizah speaks as she munches the durum bread. Steve looks at her. “For his misplaced guilt. Mama and he, they didn’t get along. They hadn’t talked for years and he was only allowed to stay in Necropolis by the time she died. I don’t know why, but that on top of my imprisonment and his embassy ignoring my father’s claims of me for seven years makes him give me everything I want.”

She sniffs and curls together the foil to throw it in a waste bin. It hits the center without her even looking. She’s wet yet sweating in the drizzle rain. “I hate it. He’s a coward.”

“She banned him because he didn’t tell her about the Illuminati,” Steve starts to inform, because he thinks that of all people, Faizah deserves to know why her life ended up in the way it did. “It’s made up by him, Dr. Strange. Mr. Stark, Dr. Richards and currently, Banner. Xavier and Namor used to be there too. As the most powerful men in the world they sat in chairs made for giants and decided how the world was going to be, and they’ve been doing it since the Kree wars. Your mother found out about it during the conflict with Atlantis. She saw it as conspiracy against Wakanda and put him on exile. When she died, he was given back the throne.”

Her hands start shaking, but he doesn’t dare reach out to put a hand on them. Suddenly she snorts with laughter, even if her eyes are wet and her lips are shaking. “So that’s all we’re gonna be, huh.” She sniffs again, but this time it’s not a running nose. “I remember the night before she went, you know. My father and her were arguing. She said it was her responsibility to make it right. He said she shouldn’t have to correct her brother’s mistakes. I didn’t know exactly who her brother was at that point. Who any of them were.” She shakes like the dry leaves left on the trees. “Three days later her men finds her dead. They said that Namor had had ‘an attack’ and beaten her to death. She had been trying to help, trying to fix it up and –“ She takes a deep breath. “I think it was T’Challa who made the Atlanteans sick, Cap. And- and it’s so dumb. So dumb. I can’t believe.”

Things are sliding into place too quickly and it hits him too suddenly.

He knows there had been tension between Atlantis and Wakanda, the two most evolved nations of Earth. Steve doesn’t know the details of the conflict, how it begun, only that it had lead to Namor offering peace terms in the form of refugee in Wakanda whenever he desired (which in Steve’s ears doesn’t sound so bad, but he is no politician or king for that matter). Wakanda had rejected, sneaked upon Atlantis and destroyed it. T’Challa himself had earlier on rejected Namor’s peace offering, but somewhere after becoming King of the Dead and letting Shuri have the throne, he had changed his mind. As revenge, Namor had allied with an alien army and directed it to the Golden City, which had been destroyed and taken over by the Cabal. But then the Atlanteans became sick and Namor went on to find a cure. The Cabal and the superheroes battled. The heroes eventually won. The Cabal disappeared.

Before the Illuminati had decided what to do with the sick Atlanteans, Namor had been infected and impulsively decided to attack the surface-dwellers (which isn’t really the first time, as far as Steve knows, due his split genetics or something) with the Flood. Aka, New Manhattan, a casualty on about 20.000 people and the sick Atlanteans haunting Central Station since then. 

“You know what the worst thing is?” Faizah asks, her voice clear now. “Mama claimed that this wasn’t ‘an ordinary war’. Which is really weird, because it sounds exactly like an ordinary war to me.”

As a history student, Steve has to admit to himself that no, this war actually sounds a lot more dumb. Usual wars are about territory, labor, resources. This war just sounds like pride. Steve breathes in, and recites: “‘The fate of both Wakanda or Atlantis hung in the balance; in the end, one of them would face total destruction’. That’s what the report said about it.”

“And why?” Faizah asks, looking at him. “ Why?  Why does it all have to be life or death like that?” She giggles hysterically.

“Breathe in slowly,” Steve instructs her and he can’t remember anymore. “Let out.” How many times he’s done this. “Again.”

It takes almost twenty minutes, and by the time she has calmed down and has her face between her knees, they’re both soaked. He says: “There’s no space. You’ll be sharing your room with Scarlet and Jewel and it’s already small. It’s the only privacy you’ve got. We’ll stop eating pork – we rarely eat meat anyway. I’ll sell the pantry and get a new one.”

She turns her face and looks up at him. A few hours ago he thought those yellow eyes looked ferocious. Now they seem as soft as butter.

“You’re Faizah Galmaan,” Steve continues. “No one is supposed to look at you and only see the ashes of the fires you caused. Avengers, it’s – it’s a place for people who don’t. Have other places to go. That’s the secret of my recruitment.”

\-----

After Sam has picked up the costume, the Wakands have left and Steve drags himself into the Tower and takes the elevator up. He feels oddly chilled to the bone and so tired that things are starting to fuzz out. The elevator opens and he can hear low muttering in the living room. His hair and shoes are dripping wet, so he dislodges the shoes and goes to get a towel, before he enters the living room. 

They all stare at him. Like really  stare.

“You’ve told them,” Steve accuses Dr. Banner. It comes out flat, because he fails to feel like he cares about anything at all anymore.

Mr. Stark nods. He looks fifteen minutes away from fainting. 

None of them says anything and Steve’s glad, because he’s not sure what he’d do if they did.

“Where’s Tony?” he asks.

When Pepper talks, her voice is hoarse: “He’s in his room.”

Steve nods once. No one tries to stop him when he heads towards Tony’s room and knocks.

“Come in.”

Steve does. 

Tony is sitting freshly-showered on the bed with a notebook and he looks so ridiculously normal. The face swelling is gone, his lips no longer chapped. Extremis probably fixed the lasting effects of the coma right up, because Tony doesn’t even look shaken. Instead he seems rather relaxed. Steve really needs to know where that strength comes from, because Tony’s the victim here and still it’s Steve who feels really hollow right now.

“You alright?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Tony confirms without blinking. His face is unreadable. “It was just a dysfunction between the – never mind. No one did this, Steve. It’s just a side effect. T’Challa put a technoneurologist – unbelievable, such a profession exists, right? Something about prolonging Wakandan knowledge and intelligence – to Dad’s disposal. If it happens again. But I might as well get used to it.”

Steve nods while looking away, his throat oddly dry.

“Come here,” Tony calls out softly and this is a mistake, Steve isn’t supposed to be the one weak right now. Still, he closes the door and pulls off his socks, before getting to the bed and crawling over to Tony. Tony nuzzles Steve’s hair and kisses his forehead, says: “My hero.”

And it’s too much like all the things Steve’s afraid of becoming. He doesn’t want to be a hero. At the beginning of Captain America he just wanted to become big so people would listen to him, he wanted to tell people how to do this, but now he’s so indefinitely scared that he’ll turn into someone sending armies to die for him, someone who plays at war like it’s a game of chess. Steve doesn’t want to be big anymore. He wants to go back to his frail body where death was a daily reminder, where his mistakes wouldn’t leave so much damage. 

“Sssh,” Tony hushes and Steve’s realizes he’s making a low whining sound in his throat. “Just breathe. You’re just human.”

Steve’s not sure he’s allowed to. But he thinks that Tony is the closest to a human decision Steve has ever made.

He leans forward and smashes his lips into Tony’s and Tony reciprocates without hesitation, just very slowly. He leans into it and crooks his arms around Tony’s neck, pulling him in closer. When he pulls back, his heart has definitely slowed down and Steve feels almost calm, almost like the hollow feeling has melted away.

They stare at eachother for a second, before Steve tilts his head and lifts his chin to kiss Tony’s cheekbone. Tony blinks and looks down, his dark lashes whispering on Steve’s lips. The younger’s breathing is almost soundless, and he lifts up his hands to curl them around Steve’s shoulders. 

“Captain America seems to strive on accomplishing the impossible,” Tony smiles a little strangely. “Even the old farts are making friends again.”

Steve groans. “Don’t bring them up.”

“Fine,” Tony smiles and pecks him quickly on the mouth. Steve puts his forehead on Tony’s and kisses him again, this time more measured and soft. When Steve dips his fingers into Tony’s shoulders, he finally notices that Tony is really tense, but as they continue to kiss - not necessarily escalating it - Tony melts into him. Tony’s stubbled chin starts scratching against Steve’s and he finds the engineer’s hands on his back, stroking it soothingly. The button-down has long since lost it’s stiff texture and lies damp and wrinkled against Steve’s skin.

When both of them feel more loose than agitated, Tony pries Steve’s mouth open and sucks on his tongue. Steve groans and tries to slip it into his lover’s mouth. Tony indulges and plays with it teasingly, before he pulls back. He’s blushing slightly and is breathing a little faster than he did before. 

Steve sighs and bows his head to trail kisses down Tony’s neck. Tony takes Steve’s hands and places them on his own torso, before swaying down on his stomach. Steve follows and plasters himself on Tony’s back, letting his hands go down to grip around the younger’s hipbones. He breathes in Tony’s scent of sandalwood and nuzzles his nose into the locks. They feel soft and Tony’s breathing is more unsteady now, his hips grinding into Steve’s hands. Steve presses his lips against the nape of the brunette’s neck, who breathes out and turns his head to kiss Steve again, his mouth soft and wet and Steve allows himself to just take, until Tony is rubbing his ass against Steve’s crotch. Steve reaches up to hold Tony’s face still, and the boy opens his mouth; just lets Steve invade his mouth and control the kiss which is steadily getting rougher. He feels something horrible and exciting in his stomach drowning his senses. His throat feels tight, his stomach is clenching and the pressure is building in his pants. He groans and drags his hips against Tony’s ass in response, a long and harsh grind.

The younger boy gasps and Steve lets go of his face, so he can use both hands on holding Tony’s hips firmly. Tony lays it down on the pillow again, following Steve with his eyes.

“Tell me,” Steve whispers as he bites at Tony’s ear. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

Tony groans and his hips jerk. 

“Come on,” Steve urges and turns his head to bite the stubbled skin on Tony’s jaw. He grinds down on Tony again. “Say it.” 

Tony shakes his head furtively, before he grabs Steve’s hand and leads it down to his crotch. Steve cups his hand around Tony’s cock, which feels rock-hard through his pajamas. Tony moans and pulls up a knee to give Steve better access.

Steve continues to massage him and Tony opens his mouth. Instead of making any sound or any movement, he starts gasping against the pillow. Steve puts his weight on his knees and rubs off on Tony’s ass, but the rough denim of his pants slightly ruins the feeling. When Tony sounds like he is about to come, Steve pulls back.

The genius makes a sound in the middle of a whine and a growl and looks back at Steve with a look of pure betrayal, right until Steve impatiently pulls off Tony’s T-Shirt, pajamas and underwear. Steve backtracks on his knees and takes off his own clothes. When he’s done and slumps down into the position on Tony’s body, the feeling of all Tony’s bare skin makes him feel ready to burst. 

“Come on, big guy,” Tony spurs, biting his lips and clenching his cheeks against Steve’s hard cock. “Give it to me.”

“Where’s the lube?” Steve asks, already reaching out for the small bedside dresser.

“Second,” Tony directs, his eyes shining and after Steve finds it, he glues himself back unto Tony’s backside, desperately needing the genius’ lips again. He almost doesn’t need to think about it when he slicks his fingers and dips them in between Tony’s cheeks. Tony whines again, and Steve experimentally rubs his finger against Tony’s entrance. It feels hard and clenched, but Tony is just about loose enough for Steve to slip in a finger. It’s still a tight fit and Tony hisses, but snaps out “Keep going” when Steve slows and obediently Steve keeps massaging, doing it a lot softer now though. 

Even if Tony’s body feels like it’s melting into the mattress, down there the boy still feels very tense and barely loosens enough for a second finger. Steve tries going even slower and moves on to kiss Tony’s shoulders and down his spine, his other hand groping Tony’s firm ass cheek. Tony starts pushing his hips back against Steve’s fingers and Steve presses a hand against his crotch, trying to relieve the pressure. Soon Tony is running the show, fucking himself mindless against Steve’s fingers. Steve sits up and vibrates his fingers a little more viciously and Tony stutters, his breath chokes up and Steve uses his strength to keep the pace going, until Tony comes with a loud moan.

Steve keeps it up and dares gently pressing against Tony’s prostate. Tony jolts and Steve presses his fingertips against the area more purposefully. When Tony slumps down and makes small whimpering noises, Steve dislodges his fingers and kisses his neck, bites to mark the skin and reaches up with his clean hand to rub at Tony’s scalp.

Tony sighs. “I’m sorry,” he groans, burying his face into the pillow.

“Don’t worry,” Steve mumbles and kisses Tony’s neck. “Can I use your thighs?”

Tony holds his breath and Steve is ready to pull away, when Tony moans: “God, yes.”

Steve spreads the lube with shaking hands, his cock achingly hard. Tony gets up on his knees and sticks his ass into the air. “Clench up.”

Tony lazily presses his thighs together and Steve licks his lips. He can’t resist gently spreading Tony’s cheeks and rub the head of his cock against Tony’s hole, while stroking it. It’s still far too tight for him to seriously try to nudge in, but the twitching muscle still feels good. For a long minute Steve gets lost in jerking off against it, until Tony tries to push back and let Steve enter him. For a second, Steve can feel the muscle try to give and hear Tony hiss, and immediately Steve very firmly pushes Tony back down and slips his cock in between Tony’s thighs instead. The boy grunts with oversensitivity as his perineum and balls are touched.

“Lie still for me,” Steve asks and adjusts Tony’s hips a bit. 

He pulls in slowly. Tony gasps and Steve can feel his thighs shaking; they’re wet and soft and slightly hairy and it’s perfect. He thrusts in and Tony moans with him, high-pitched and shortly. It doesn’t take long for Steve to come; because of the mattress, Tony keeps bouncing up against him and as Steve starts to roughly snap in his hips, his orgasm takes him by surprise. 

With a groan he pulls out and kind of dazed, he smears his cum all over Tony’s crack, only to find that Tony is hard again. 

Steve kneels down, takes Tony’s ass in his hands and licks away his cum on Tony’s balls and thighs. When Steve finally pulls back and lays his tongue flat against Tony’s hole, the younger cries out and Steve eagerly dips his tongue in to feel the clenching muscle.

“Steve,” Tony moans and Steve knows that tone. He tilts forward his chin and thrusts in his tongue, once, maybe twice and Tony is spurting again. At this point Tony’s hole is finally starting to gape a little and Steve curiously pushes in three fingers easily and curls them directly in against Tony’s prostate. Tony’s knees give out and Steve keeps thrusting until Tony is no longer making noises. With a kiss on Tony’s ass cheek, Steve pulls his fingers out.

Tony lays in their wet spot, twitching, but thankfully the bed is large enough for Steve to just roll the genius away from it. Tony puts his arms around Steve’s neck and kisses him sloppily, before promptly falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Faizah is 100% OC. She wasn't supposed to become an Avenger, but I wanted to throw some diversity into the Avengers and have a member representative of Wakanda and that war and etc. So sorry about that.  
> (Dust is busy in a hero boot camp and Kamala hasn't been conceived yet neither have any of the Young Avengers, if you're wondering whether they're going to make an appearance).   
> Many thanks for the feedback and kudos so far ^^ Hope you enjoyed the chap and drop a comment for author's motivation :D


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is this vibranium?” Steve asks startled, staring at the thing in awe. It’s a … lightweight, silver-white disk-like shield. It has a blue circle in the middle, containing an uncolored star. Three rings extends from the inner circle, going from red to uncolored to red. The uncolored silver looks white with the patriotic combination of colors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Gabrielle (capsgirl19.tumblr.com) for looking this chap over :D

When Steve wakes up, it’s to the sound of running water. He blinks awake and notices that the morning has already shifted into afternoon and that his crotch is itching with come and lube. He’s been asleep for over 10 hours. That’s a first. Sitting up, he looks at the bathroom door and listens for sounds that seem off, though it’s probably just Tony in there. Most likely.

Getting up and nearing the door, he catches the sound of a safety razor tappingon the sink. A dangerous uninvited guest wouldn’t be shaving, right? Knocking Steve calls out: “Are you done?”

“A sec,” Tony calls back, and the tap comes on again. He’s probably rinsing the blade. A minute later Tony opens the door and steps out with wet hair. He stops, looks down at Steve, and smirks. Steve smiles back, wiggling his brows at Tony’s damp chest.He doesn’t know when it started, but Tony has really begun the transition from boy to man. The trail of pubic hair down his abdomen to his crotch has gotten more opaque and his legs and arms have become longer and thicker, the lines of his chest deeper and more pronounced.

“You’ve been putting on muscle,” Steve says out loud and is disappointed with himself for not noticing sooner. 

Tony smiles and steps forward. Having recently shaved, Steve also notices that Tony’s beard has gone from vaguely Van Dyke shaped stubble to a more emphasized Van Dyke.

“Yeah,” Tony confirms and comes close. He doesn’t even have to stand on his toes to kiss Steve’s lips. “All that working out finally seems to pay off.”

Steve smiles and pecks Tony on the lips, before striding around him and entering the bathroom. The mirror is covered with a towel. Steve exhales. The lack of mirrors at home has made him totally forget all about that. 

It’s still slightly steamy, but the floor is dry and Tony has gotten out a spare toothbrush, still in its packaging. He enters the shower stall and quickly soaps the bits of last night off. It takes him some minutes to find a shampoo he’s comfortable using in the colorful rows of products in French and East Asian languages. His hair feels soft and smells very citrus-y when he’s done rinsing it, and he eyes the bottle of shampoo appreciatively, before he moves on to look for a disposable razor and some shaving cream. Thankfully, this too Tony has put on the nearest shelf. He eyes the covered mirror, as he shaves, only using his hands as guides; he’s slightly irritated that he’s just adapted to not using mirrors. He should seriously get over it sometime soon. It’s not like he doesn’t face his reflection in the windows and liquids. It’s ridiculous that Tony has to cover up his own mirror-. 

With a sigh he parts his hair, but it has already become too long for him to wear it naturally, so he steals a bit of Tony’s hair mousse and combs it back. While the warm water chases away the rest of his sleepiness, he thinks about what he needs to do today. He needs to debrief Tony on what’s happened, needs to talk to Faizah’s father like he talked to Peter’s aunt, needs to run Faizah’s decision by T’Challa to make sure he won’t tear up the country in search of his niece, he needs to call the X-men in Canada for an update about Sue and Franklin’s status, he needs to meet this _bio neuroscience_ guy –

“What are you doing in there?” Tony complains from outside. “You want me to change the bed sheets and make the bed by myself? Didn’t think you had it in you, Steve.”

Steve snorts and turns off the water. In the bedroom, Tony flicks him a package of underwear and Steve frowns, because that’s a really odd thing to have when it isn’t close to your size, but he obediently gets them on and helps Tony make the bed and arrange the pillows. Tony finds him some sweatpants big enough to fit and an oversized T-shirt which feels painted on. They leave the bedroom to get something to eat.

Steve borrows a Bluetooth headset, and as soon as Tony arranges himself with a cup of coffee and professor-work, he starts dialing people up. He hasn’t got his voice alternator with him, but that just means the amount of work he can get done is smaller. Meanwhile he pulls up ingredients and sets about the calming process of making pancakes.

By the time Mr. Stark joins them, not even ten minutes have gone by. He looks worn down, as if he's already collapsed once today, and is fighting to keep it from happening again. Even his morning glare directed towards Steve is kind of weak. Steve almost feels sorry for him, but he’s also silently pleased about not being needled. Still, Steve is a compassionate guy and has seen Tony without his caffeine, so he puts on more coffee and starts cutting oranges into slices, because surely he doesn’t have to actually sneak the vitamins into either one of them, right? Right.

He pours rye flour into to the pancake mix, and increases the amount when Mr. Stark starts twitching out of the blue, glaring at his phone.

When he’s done, he puts the plate of pancakeson the table. They both grumble a thank you, but are too deep into their work to reach for themselves, so Steve stacks pancakes on their plates, and only stops staring when they absentmindedly start eating. It’s actually kind of amusing watching them eat. Mr. Stark is right-handed and Tony is left, and they expertly both only use one hand to tear the pancakes into more manageable pieces, afterwards searchingly stabbing the tool around the plate (often missing actual food) until it skewers something, and gape their mouths wide open to stuff it all in at once, chewing and grumbling without really knowing. He finds himself fondly smiling around his cereal. ‘Starks’. More like a breed of house cats.

Steve eats his pancakes, carefully controlling the portion size so he’s eating a meal for one and not four. Steve starts calling people as he cleans up his mess (which is pretty easy, since there’s a dishwasher and the refrigerator has got lots of space), and it doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes before Pepper and Happy are standing in the kitchen, in only their pajamas. They both look a little startled to see him and he feels slightly awkward. Not unwelcomed, but more like he’s not supposed to be here.

“He spent the night,” Mr. Stark says, unnecessarily. “He made pancakes. Because Steven does that.”

“You want any coffee?” Steve offers.

“Yes, thank you,” she says.

“I want it with two sugars and milk,” Happy announces, claiming four pancakes.

“He’s not your servant,” Pepper reprimands and looks apologetically at Steve, who shrugs in reply and goes to the coffee maker to pour two cups.  

“You want anything in yours, Ms. Potts?” Steve asks. She politely declines.

\- _Black Panther and his niece want to meet you on Liberty Island tonight._

Steve looks up from his phone and makes eye contact with Tony over his shoulder. He turns around again and reaches for the sugar at the edge of the windowsill, when his eyes catch on something. He blinks and looks up from the sugar pot, scanning the exterior of the neighbor building and tries to figure out what’s left him feeling uneasy. He leans forward, trying to see through the glare of sunshine reflecting from the building glass. Nothing strikes him as odd, and it’s only when he’s about to pull away that his eyes once again catch onto something red.

It’s a figure, as big as the nail on Steve’s thumb. She – or he – has long red hair and completely black clothes. She’s holding field glasses in front of her eyes and has it directed towards them.

He gradually smooths out his frown and lets his eyes keep searching the building, until he’s sure that there aren’t more. Slowly he looks over his shoulder, as if someone said something to him.

He knows the act is lousy and probably in vain, but he needs to think. Why is the person standing in plain sight like that, obviously watching them? She probably trusts that no one with enhanced sight would be on the lookout.

Steve tries to pull back as casually as possible, careful as if he’s seen nothing, but he feels tense. “JARVIS, could you please lower the blinds,” Steve urges the electronic butler. While the translucent blinds roll down, Steve balances on the balls of his feet for a moment, before very slowly walking back to the table, where they’re looking at him in question.

He very carefully says: “I think Black Widow is watching us.”

Mr. Stark puts the phone on the table. Tony’s eyes widen. 

“Northwest building,” Steve continues, “twenty floors down. Tony.”

“On it,” Tony replies, pauses for a long minute as his eyes blackens and then breathes out. “It looks like her. But I can’t see so well, I can only connect the opposite floor’s interior security camera. I told you we should have invested there, Dad.”

“Are there are absolutely no cameras in the building she’s in?” Pepper asks.

“Dismantled,” Tony shoots down. “She’s not leaving any evidence.”

Long minutes pass by as they all think about what to do next.

“You need to get out of town, out of the state,” Steve states and stands up. “I told you this

would happen.”

“I need to monitor the development on the super Sentinels,” Mr. Stark rejects right away. “I look away for one second, and those things won’t be safe.”

“Maybe that’s why she’s here. To make sure you won’t.” Mr. Stark’s face falls. Steve continues a little softer: “Think of Pepper and Happy. Think of Tony.”

“I’m not leaving,” Tony breaks out right away.

“If she wanted to kill me, fleeing wouldn’t help me for very long anyway,” Mr. Stark calmly tells Steve, and then to Tony: “Yes, you are.”

“Okay, I’m not sure you’ve been updated on what she has been doing the past couple of years,” Steve interrupts before Tony can counteract. “But they are not good things.”

“I’m not scared of her,” Mr. Stark shouts.

“You should be,” Tony pipes up. “She has changed. A lot. It’s actually kind of hard to believe she was once a superhero.”

Mr. Stark narrows his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’ve been reading up on – “

“Everything.” Tony stalls and continues in a quick voice: “The Illuminati, the Negative Zone, the – the management on Hero Boot Camp refugees – “

“It wasn’t your place,” Pepper states, sounding tired. “Steve, did you put him up to this.”

“So what if I did,” Steve answers sharply. “He deserves to know why the government thinks it’s fair to put him in a coma.”

“If he hadn’t snooped around –“ Pepper begins heatedly.

“Sorry Pep, they’ve had the chips in development since I stopped Bruce from tearing down Manhattan,” Tony dismisses, which even surprises Steve. He hadn’t been able to trace the beginning of the chips’ development down himself.

“You need to get out of the state at least,” Steve tries again.  “You too, Tony. They can’t use your father anymore, not when he isn’t building what they need. He’s too much of a risk, and so are you.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Tony fumes.

“You’re at risk here,” Steve says and then more intently: “We can still talk.”

Both of the Starks open their mouths, and Steve needs to end this: “Think of Pepper’s kids.”

Pepper makes a low, distressed sound and Happy jumps up in outrage.

“I’ve been an orphan since I was 8,” Steve says. “Do you know what they have to do there? They put drugs in our food and in our water. Legally experiment with us, because we’re expendable and no one cares. As soon as we show signs of mutation, we’re either taken or put down. Their bodies will never be their own anymore. That’s not fair of you, Mr. Stark.”

\----

So Steve goes to meet Black Panther on Liberty Island, and he doesn’t need to look long. Wakandan agents are in plain sight, dressed in their own uniforms and create a half circle around a piece of beach. As Sam drops him on the wet sand, Steve sights Faizah and her father, a thin, dark-skinned man, sitting on a family bench not far away from the inner wall of guards. He looks like one of those people who were once robust and sturdy. It’s not only his curling shoulders and hunching figure that make him look strained now; something around his eyes and mouth look older, a little hopeless, perhaps even maybe a bit broken. Faizah is holding his hand, talking in a low soothing voice, a tongue Steve doesn’t understand, but her father doesn’t seem to be hearing her. So he knows that his little girl isn’t going to be coming home with him. That she just got out of jail and now she’s going to stay underneath the uncompromising eye of Sentinels and governmental control and continuously try to fight it. Maybe she’s not ever going to come home after this. 

God. Steve is an awful person. He’s fucking awful for this. He’s _taking_. He’s no better than the Hero Boot Camps.

As Steve nears them, the pocket of soldiers create a natural little hole and Steve slips through, silently passing the Somali family to get to the king turning around to face him.

“You will call me with this phone if she needs anything,” T’Challa cuts to the chase and reaches him a plastic bag with a cellphone inside. “I’m on speed dial 1. I’ve given her armor and money and papers.”

“Alright,” Steve says, his voice coming out oddly choked. “Alright." 

There’s a long moment where T’Challa is directly staring at Steve’s eyes, scrutinizing the little detail of Steve’s face, memorizing what he’s going to wipe the floor with if Steve messes up. Then the king turns and looks in her direction. “She’s brave.”

“A fighter,” Steve nods and tries to sound reassuring. “She’s better prepared than any of us were.

  
At the bench, Faizah’s father has left the stage of denial, and started with the anger.

There are two minutes where they’re just waiting for Faizah to fight back, but her hands are thinner and more shaky than ever.

“She’s muslim,” T’Challa brings up. “I expect respectful hospitality.”

Steve considers saying that it was mostly the local muslims - due to _zakat,_ an Afghan father had explained - who had donated food and clothes to the orphanage, and that it was probably because of their steady helping hand that the orphanage hadn’t called for the the suits more.

But T’Challa doesn’t need to know that. He just needs a promise.

Steve shakes his head. “We have a no alcohol in the house policy, and after this we’re going to be buying some new pantry. She will have a room separated from the men. Besides, we hardly ever have meat. I don’t see the issue of cutting pork out of our grocery list. It’s expensive anyway.”

T’Challa eyes him. “And the others?”

Steve snorts. Clint is a well-travelled circus worker, the twins are Jewish, Danielle has Kung Fu as a religion and Sam took two tours in the Middle East. Parker will probably be curious, as he is with everything really. If anything comes to it, Steve or Tony will just have to make sure it doesn’t get too invasive. “It won’t be a problem. Falcon and she can exchange Arabic cuss words.”

“The soldier, right?” the king asks, glancing up at the sky where Falcon is probably hiding somewhere.

Steve nods.

“I can upgrade his wings,” T’Challa offers.

“Probably. You’re gonna have to talk to him about it.”

Black Panther nods once, getting the message and looks at his guards. “I’ve brought you a gesture of thanks.”

Steve frowns. “I’d rather not, your Highness.”

-       _This is the time to shut up and take the present, Cap,_ a robotic voice breaks in in his com and Steve jumps.

“Iron Man, get out of the com,” Steve scolds, and jumps again when a guard nears them with a black bag. Steve looks up and T’Challa is reaching it over to him. Steve hesitantly takes it and zips it open.

 _\- Woah_ , Iron Man exclaims in Steve’s ear and Steve curses the day he let Tony put a microphone in his helmet. - _Vibranium._

“Is this vibranium?” Steve asks startled, staring at the thing in awe. It’s a … lightweight, silver-white shield-like disk. It has a blue circle in the middle, containing an uncolored star. Three rings extends from the inner circle, going from red to uncolored to red. The uncolored silver looks white with the patriotic combination of colors.

-       _Oh my god, it is!,_ Tony exclaims in the com. – _Bring it home. **I wanna touch it**._

“Iron Man, calm down,” Steve says and then stares blankly at the king. “Is it?”

“Yes,” T’Challa responds and he sounds humored and pleased that he managed to knock Captain America off his feet. “I’ve noticed how often you’ve gotten shot and still you refuse to use weapons, Captain. Use the shield and hold it close to you with this.” He pulls a torso belt out the black bag. “It’s magnetic." 

“I don’t know what to say,” Steve says, completely astounded. He has gotten so used to the resentment of the older generation of superheroes that he honestly doesn't know how to feel about a gift like this. He takes a deep breath and it’s only when he realizes T’Challa gave this to him so he could protect Faizah better, that he knows how to overcome the situation. He inspects the torso belt before he straps it around him and attaches the shield onto his back. The weight feels right.

_\- Ask him if it’s Wakandan or Antarctic? I bet it’s Wakandan. Ask him, **it’s important**._

Steve sighs audibly. “Iron Man asks if it’s Wakandan or Antarctic? 

T’Challa sounds considering. “We had a fraction of the sacred mound of Wakandan Vibranium converted to Antarctic Vibranium by particle bombardment.”

-       _Oh my god_ , Iron Man breaks out shouting, which makes Steve flinch.

“I’m sure you will explain the difference to me _later_ ,” Steve reminds Tony, who’s currently doing something Clint calls the _shrill shriek of science discovery_. “Which is not now, Shellhead.”

There are muffled sounds of distress.

“I think you just gave him a nerdgasm,” Steve smiles. “Now I know he’s going to mess with my phone if I reject it. Thank you. You didn’t have to.”

“Considering I already gave you my heir, maybe,” T’Challa agrees. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, _you gave me away_?” Faizah shouts from the bench, which makes the king sigh. “When the Hell was I even _yours_? And when haven’t I been fighting? Huh?”

“Nothing, I didn’t mean it,” T’Challa says in a tone of a man who has had this fight many times before and who knows when to give up.

“No, tell me,” she insists, because his quick surrender is not satisfying enough. 

‘She’s perfect,’ Steve thinks.

 _\- She’s perfect_ , Tony says. - _But our bathroom isn’t. So, I’ve decided to renovate it. Again. Can you quickly ask him about the electron configuration? Ask him about the electron configuration._

\----

“Listen to me,” Steve shouts into his phone for the umpteenth time while waiting for the train, Faizah checking her phone beside him “You’re going home. No. No. _No_. Look, the train is here and we’re going underground.”

He hangs up and ignores that it immediately starts ringing again. 

“So, did we get all of it?” he asks her, because the literal fifteen bags on his hands should be enough for now, but then again, what does he know about shopping (“Nothing,” a voice sounding suspiciously a lot like Tony makes it known in his head). They’d been in every one dollar store in Manhattan and then in every second Sephora. She couldn’t deal with the fact that her favorite foundation line discontinued during her incarceration, and throughout the five hour long shopping trip, he’s come to not speak about zone 42. There’s a reason they’re called the Avengers and he’d be dead by accident by now if he hadn’t learned to walk on eggshells. Steve just hopes that the clubhouse’s underground setting won’t mess with Faizah’s head. It might feel containing to her.

It’s the same old caveat Steve forgets every time: they’re the victims and all of this isn’t their fault. It’s not supposed to be easy and it’s not like any of them are in denial. Sam doesn’t bond with any particular bird. Tony doesn’t like getting his chips or the skin near it, touched. Steve doesn’t face mirrors.

It’s scars. They know it’s scars. They’re gonna be scars regardless of how many times a day they forget about them. Maybe it’s time they stop feeling so guilty about it.

\----

They’re on their way home from the Bronx, when Steve finally convinces Tony to stay at least a week in Bahamas. Turns out Tony quit his position as professor “because I’ve done the required weeks of teaching and honestly, the students can’t keep up anyway”. He’s still working on his PhD in addition to working with Stark Resilient.

It’s dawn and Manhattan is as bare as Manhattan can be, when Steve, Wanda and Sam stands on a nearby roof to see the family off. Sam and Wanda are the best escapists on the team and Steve doesn’t feel bad bringing them. They’re all hiding underneath Wanda’s umbrella of _We’re here but you won’t notice that_ spell, and watching the jet come down on Stark Tower’s helicopter platform. Steve doubts that Black Widow would try anything with Bruce escorting the family, but they can provide a distraction if so.

Happy and Howard are the first people stepping out in the open, Pepper and her two children trailing behind shielded by Bruce and Tony tailing them.

Tony looks around. The com system beeps as it’s activated.

\- _I love you,_ Tony says before Steve can tell him to get off the com.

Steve promptly chokes. Happiness fills his chest and spreads through his limbs, until his body feels giddy and he steps out of Scarlet’s umbrella. Tony, who’s boarding the jet, is already looking around and immediately sights Steve. He lifts an arm and waves.

“I love you too,” Steve replies.

There’s a second of silence and then the sound of deep chuckles. 

Something shoots towards him.

Sam shouts but Steve’s body has already zoomed in on the sound and he throws his shield in front of him just as something blows up at his feet and throws him over the edge of the building. 

There’s a long, terrifying second where Steve is just falling and desperately trying to grab onto anything conve, until he manages to grab a flag pole and hang on. He barely has time to try and pull himself up, before a body made of black oil and red hair skims down the glass wall like _a fucking spider_ and throws out her arm, stinging his own with a Widow Bite. He yowls and tries to knock her away with his shield. She easily parries and stabs out her arm to sting him again.

There’s a clutter of feathers as every gull in Manhattan gathers around them and the Widow shouts as they ruthlessly attack and Steve lets go of the pole. There’s only a moment of free fall, before Sam locks his arms around him, chest to chest, and skyrockets up. Steve looks over his shoulder and sees the birds scatter. The Black Widow is gone. Sam drops Steve on another building and there’s a breathless moment where they’re breathing heavily, Steve from the wounds and fear and Sam from the extension.

“You idiot, she’s not here for them!” Sam shouts. “She’s here for _you_!”

Steve breathes out, his heart thudding and the pain of the electric burns making his senses spike. He tries to check on Stark Tower but the building they’re on is on a blind angle.

“Where the Hell is Scarlet?” Steve shouts.

“I told her to get out of here,” Falcon replies, but his face mirrors what Steve is thinking: Did the Black Widow disappear to take care of Wanda?

A bird cries out and Steve rips Sam close, pulling up the shield, so he can protect them both from the rain of bullets. It’s only five bullets and Steve realizes that it’s a distraction the second Widow seems to appear out of thin air and kick in his knees, her feet feeling like iron clubs. He groans, wards off her next attack and kicks her in the solar plexus, turning around and getting Sam up on his feet ( _it was **STUPID** to bring him with that foot_ ). Steve looks back at the Widow who is getting up, her face blank and not even heaving. Her face is abruptly bathed in red light as hex bolts flies around Steve and Sam in a buzz, aiming for the Widow –

 - who pulls up a gun, aims it at somewhere behind Steve –

He throws the shield. It doesn’t matter if he will lose it, as long as it –

Widow is knocked down as the shield ricochets off the wall beside her, and Steve runs directly towards her to disorient and keep her aim off the Avengers, jumping up the catch the shield and swipe at her side. She parries and he delivers a right hook, which makes her sway for a second, but then she grabs his sleeve and thrusts him forwards, wrapping her legs around his waist quicker than he can perceive and his body is flattened out on the cement within a nanosecond. He groans, paralyzed in long moments, his spine feeling like pins and needles and hurries to roll to the side as she tries to smash her foot into his face. He gets up on his feet and - there are gunshots.

He feels all of them. 

Somewhere in his mind, he notices that his jacket is going from blue to purple. He doesn’t understand why he is on his knees.

There are four more shots and he hears her run towards him, kicking him in the chest and he’s thrown over the railing and into empty space. He feels the wind around him and it makes his clothes flutter. He sees Scarlet reach the railing, looking down at him, almost tipping over (Wanda, that’s not safe). She’s holding out her red-gloved hand, her mouth open in anguish. Her eyes are wide open.

Red and pink energy follow him down and he closes his eyes as it swallows him up.

\----

His neck and spine jerk sharply as he lands on grass, and at the same time he feels the blood splash all over the soft earth. He twitches and the pain whites out his vision for a second. When he comes to, the pain is softer and he tries sitting up. His muscles feel congealed and he barely cares about his trace of DNA. His life will be over if he doesn’t get up.

He has managed to get up on his elbow, when he hears something close to his ear say: “Hello?”

Steve jumps and looks wildly around, and finally makes out that something is hovering above his chest. He turns his head and looks at it. When he doesn’t immediately understand what the creature is, he narrows his eyes and looks closer. It’s a tiny woman with a brown pixie cut and small mosaic-like wings. She’s wearing a black and yellow suit.

“You’re a fairy?” he asks croakily and she flies up to his face, putting her tiny hands on his nose.

“Cap?” she asks.

He blinks quickly, something mentally harsh and unbearably heavy dropping down on his conscious. “You’re. You’re. You’re a superhero.”

She smiles and Steve swipes her away, looking for an escape, only to realize that three men have somehow sneaked up upon him and are in fact standing right in front of him. Steve’s body shakes and trembles at the thought of getting up.  

“Cap?” one calls out and Steve doesn’t understand. They don’t seem hostile, but they’re superheroes.

The nearest man is black and broad, bald with a goatee and yellow shirt. Beside him is a smaller redhead with black sunglasses and there’s –

“Spidey?” Steve calls, but no, it’s all wrong, that costume isn’t supposed to fit a man.

“Cap,” the fairy calls again, now at a respectable distance. “You’re in shock. Come inside.”

“No,” he turns down. His voice shakes and he’s staring at them, wondering what they’re gonna do to him. He quickly looks around. They’re in some big, disturbingly peaceful and beautiful garden. The sun is high and shining, and it’s feels a lot warmer than the Manhattan fall he left behind. “I. I need. I need Banner.”

“Dude, relax,” the nearest man tries and somehow, despite his intimidating size, he seems safer, friendlier. “You’re safe here.”

“Nowhere is safe,” Steve snaps and realizes that if he is here - then the Avengers are alone with the Widow. “They won’t stop. Not until. Not until. Scarlet. Scarlet. Falcon? Where…?” He feels dizzy. Everything is starting to fade. “She’s going to kill them. I need to get back.”

“Cap,” Spidey says. “You’re not – “

\----

He wakes up to a cutting pain and yelling, he looks down at his body. For a second he only sees the scalpel in his flesh and he screams, someone is shouting and he’s blacking out again.

\----

When he wakes, he’s in a small room with an open window. He can hear someone, teenagers, playing. Softball. Probably.

\----

Next time he awakens, an old man is moving the pillows around, fiddling with something. Steve looks up and sees it’s an IV. It makes him jump and touch his face, but the bandana is still in place. The old man is keeping his distance though. Steve looks down at himself. He’s wearing his pants, his voice alternator and gloves. His helmet is unmoved too, and Steve knows it’s ready to fall into pieces the second it comes off. 

His coat has been zipped open though and someone has wrapped his stomach in bandages. They’re getting bled through right this second.

“You tore up the stitches,” the old man clucks in dismay. He has a British accent. “I will call for assistance,” the butler nods and Steve is about to get off the bed, when he feels.

He starts breathing heavily as he struggles to get free, but the cuffs are linked to the bed and none of them are budging. “Let me go!” Steve shouts and can feel a sob following quickly after.

He keeps feeling like someone is going to put him right back into that radiation chamber and another life will be taken this time, Tony or Pietro or Sam and he can’t do that, he can’t do that again – “Please, please, don’t let them have me –“ A woman, the fairy, comes in. But she’s in regular human size. “Nononono, stop - !”

She injects his IV and he shouts in helplessness as the drug stream into his bloodstream.

His last thought is that she looks awfully a lot like the woman in Old Manhattan.

\----

Tony is staring out of the window, and is trying to breath, but he can’t. He can’t breathe. Why don’t people get that already.

”Anthony,” his father calls out behind him, stepping out of the balcony door.

Tony flinches and then shakes his head. ”I’m sorry, Dad. But. He’s too important. This is too important.”

He turns around and his father is looking at him. Not staring at him, just looking. And still, it’s like he’s seeing an entirely different person, someone he’s not surprised to see, but someone he has tried not to look at.

”He’s my Captain,” Tony tries, because he won’t be able to handle Dad stopping him.

But his father nods, and he looks like he’s about cry. Something hard goes over his face and he straightens. ”Then do what you must to retrieve him. Iron Man.”

Tony calls the armor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback is very much appreciated and motivates the author ^^ Especially constructive criticism!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “God fuck, Steve, you come from such an ugly place and you make me forget that, you make it look so pretty, you make it look so easy, right until you pull this stunt,” Tony yells and his Adam’s Apple sinks, as his voice cracks. It still feels better than the low cutting voice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mention of self-harm! sorry for the long hiatus, life once again got in the way ^^' Short, but hopefully an emotionally satisfying chapter. Next chapter will be more description-like and take us through about 6 months?

_Bucky is crying again._

_Steve could hear it all the way from the staircase, the echoes of his sobs thrown around within the thin walls. He unlocks their apartment door and the sobs quiet down to a small whimper and a body shuffling around. He quickly steps inside and locks the door._

_Red-stained bandages are all over their bed sheets and Bucky’s eyes are puffed and flaring red, his hair greasy and obviously been run through with his hands several times. ”I’m sorry,” he calls out to Steve._

_”It’s okay,” Steve hushes. He knows. He knows Bucky doesn’t want to be like this; knows Bucky can’t help it. Steve finds the dull razors on the cupboard this time and he uses the ruined bandages to wrap them in and hide them away to in a place where he can find and take care of them later._

_After that he sits on the bedside and gently takes Bucky’s arms in his hands, examining the cuts like always even if they are already looking days old. Bucky sits up when Steve urges him to, and Steve tries to pat him down in look for other injuries so softly that Bucky’s oversensitive nerves won’t flare too much at his touch. ”It’s okay, Buck.”_

_”I’m sorry, Steve. I won’t.” Bucky shakes and it’s a full body rattle. Steve’s almost grateful, because it’s better for Bucky not to make promises he can’t keep. His bones are showing through his skin so clearly now. He’s been throwing up, and Steve feels bad, because the only thing he worries about when it comes to that, is whether or not Bucky has done it too soon for the pills to take effect. ”I won’t do it again,” Bucky persists anyway and Steve’s reminded of the 9 months a year where Bucky isn’t like this: Fragile, falling to pieces. His mind dissolving and his body going through symptoms of a heroin addict during a cold turkey. Steve wishes that he doesn’t know exactly how a heroin addict looks during a cold turkey looks. He’s not that lucky._

_”I know you won’t.” Steve pulls him in and pushes Bucky’s face into his neck. Bucky exhales shakily, his breath sour and damp against Steve’s skin. He starts shaking again. Starts crying. ”There,” Steve hushes. ”It’s gonna be alright. You just need to sleep.”_

_He knows lack of rest isn’t the issue here, but a few mindless hours will probably be good for both of them. Tomorrow will be another day where Bucky tries to throw up the pills, tries to cheat Steve into not taking them. But it’s only 34 days till the NY testing now. And when it’s over, Steve will be able to lower the dose, and then it won’t be another 9 months before they have to do it all over again. It hurts making Bucky go through this, but they can count themselves more lucky than most._

_Many mutants and most superhumans can’t even take the medicine without getting life threatening side effects. Some even take the medicine all year around just to stay out of the Sentinels’ sensors. So Steve should be thankful, but it’s hard to see how lucky they are when his vision keeps blurring out. He hates seeing Bucky like this, self-destructive and melting down, but it’s better than not seeing him at all._

Steve gasps awake and tries to sit up but he’s still cuffed down and he yells in helplessness, his wrists aching and stinging, something crusty on their interior side and someone, ~~Bruce~~ **~~THE HULK~~** Dr. Banner, moves, leaning into his sight, going “Cap, Cap, relax – “

“Let me go,” he shouts. “No, they will kill him, he’ll die if they change me again, please – “

“Cap,” another voice breaks in, and he sounds familiar. Sam moves into his line of sight, putting a hand on Steve’s cheek. Steve can feel its coldness even through the bandana. “You need to relax. We can’t uncuff you unless we know you’re not going to hurt yourself – “

“What – “ Steve stops himself and re-evaluates his situation. He is cuffed down to a table. His release depends on his compliancy. And he can do that, make them think he has every idea of what’s going on, he can fool them long enough to break free and run, collect his things and disappear ~~wait hasn’t he already done that before,~~ so he makes eye contact with Sam and says in his calmest voice: “Let me go. I won’t hurt myself.”

Sam does not look convinced, but he starts unstrapping Steve’s restraints anyway. “Do you know that you fight even in your sleep?” he asks casually and slowly, as Steve sits up, clenching his hands and wriggling his toes tryingly.

He’s still masked, but fatally cleaner than he ever remembers being before, which means that at some point someone had cleaned him up and put back on his clothes. He tries not to dwell on who that might be and how much he has lost, and instead takes in the surroundings.

At the beginning, he isn’t quite sure where he’s at, but he picks up the small windows, the iron fences on them, the high ceilings.

“Can you tell me what year we’re in?” Dr. Banner asks, flickering on light and checking Steve’s pupils. It’s hypocritical of Steve that he has brought his people here many times, thinking they were safe in Dr. Banner’s hands, and still he flinches away from the doctor’s touch.

Steve gulps, his throat dry. “Why?”

“Just a routine question,” Dr. Banner answers in unbothered voice and while he might be able to hold his face, something on Sam’s flickers.

“Twenty –“ he stutters and stops. Wait. He should be able to get this right. He’s pretty sure it’s. Or.

“Maybe we should stay here for a bit,” Dr. Banner suggests after a dragging silence, where Sam is just staring at him and Steve feels more confused than ever. “Iron Man is on his way.”

“Cap, the assault on you was caught on camera,” Sam breaks in. “As soon as the video was leaked, over 2k soldiers from the Hero Boot Camp ran away and joined the Resistance and four demonstrations in DC and five here have been tamped down by the police. It’s insane, T-shirts, bands, they even have a got damn slogan ‘Royal to nothing but the dream’ – ”

“What?” Steve exclaims. “That’s. What? How? Were people hurt? Where is _here?_ ”

“You’re in New York, the Stark Mansion,” Dr. Banner talks over Sam, who looks vaguely guilty. “You remember what happened?”

Steve shakes his head.

“Scarlet teleported you into another dimension,” Sam says slowly, carefully looking Steve in the eye as if awaiting his reaction. “She couldn’t see you escaping in your state and you were falling to your death. But as you know, Scarlet’s magic can be kind of unpredictable. We had a little trouble finding you.”

“Spiderman was a man,” Steve says with sudden clarity. “I … I saw the Wasp. And. An old man. Who talked like JARVIS.”

Bruce gently pushes him down on his back. “Lie down and try to rest, Cap.”

“I renewed the DNA wipes,” Sam informs. “No worries, Cap.”

“Okay,” Steve says, laying down on his back on the bed again. He stares at his gloves and for a second everything almost slips out of focus again. He blinks and when the room comes into vision again, Tony is sleeping on a chair and it’s darker in the room than he remembers. He breathes out and blinks, starting doze off again, when a clear voice calls: “Steven.”

Steve jumps and looks up. Bucky sits by the cupboard with his legs spread. This time he looks like the day he died; the old grey Louise Armstrong t-shirt (Steve had a Ella Fitzgerald t-shirt to match, but he hadn’t brought it when he abandoned their place), stiff in congealed blood, his feet and pants seams almost black with dirt. The pony tail is loose and the untied strands of hair greasy.

Everything fades.

Bucky says: “I wonder why she decided to not retire anyway.”

\----

When Steve wakes up again, he feels a lot more clearheaded and maybe that’s why the first thing he notices, is that he’s bare. Sitting up, he smells red fusion tea and hears the sound of someone chattering their teeth. He works himself up on his elbows, and first now notices the IV. Probably why he feels energized instead of drained. He’s home and dressed in his pajamas and Wanda is at the kitchen, trying to dose sugar into a pot, but her hands are shaking so bad that the sugar ends up all over the table.

“Are you okay?” he asks from a distance, because he knows better than to startle her.

She turns her head and she’s pale and wet. “Fi-Fine, it’s hella cold outside. How are you feeling?”

“I’m good,” he allows. “Go change your clothes, I will get this pot ready.”

She nods and disappears into her room. He doses the sugar and adds some honey. It’s early winter and while Steve knows there won’t be any snow because of the climate change the Flood brought, the rain is icy and enough to take the life of the homeless every year.

When she comes back out she’s in sweatpants and that big, ugly sweater Sam bought her and Steve offers her the towel he has warmed up on the radiator to dry her hair.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” she asks him.

“No,” he said. “I’m all healed up. It helps that you kept me hydrated.”

Scarlet sniffs.

He reaches out and puts a hand on her arm. “Hey. You saved my life.”

“You could’ve gotten away, but you were looking for me and she didn’t even care about the rest of us in the end – “

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Steve says. “None of us knew that at that point.”

“I should’ve told you I was in safety,” she stresses.

“There wasn’t any time for that,” Steve insists. “It was my fault. I stepped out of that bubble. I should’ve known you could protect yourself in it, at least. You transported me to… that place. Where was that again? They helped me.”

It had been so odd, now that he remembers. It had been Stark Mansion but _on the ground_? And an old man that sounded just like JARVIS. And the sky had been … clear. No Sentinels. No sight of New Manhattan, no sight of the fog surrounding it.

“Do know,” she shrugs, looking shaken. “We got out there, took you and got away again.”

“Okay,” Steve nods, not daring to dig into the subject further. “Where’s my phone?”

“Uhm. Tony said – “

“It’s important,” Steve pursues. “Please.”

She sighs heavily and goes to her room. When she comes back, his phone is blinking with missed called and unopened messages and he ignores them in favor of calling Fury.

\----

He’s standing in costume on the dam.

“You’re so dumb,” Bucky is yelling behind him. “You’re so fucking dumb, if I was alive I’d kick your ass. God, how many times are you gonna _do this_? This is why I can’t just _rest in peace_.”

Steve ignores him. If he wanted that talk he’d had pick up Tony’s calls.

He doesn’t have to wait long. He has walked through New Manhattan in costume and now he’s standing in plain sight on the dam, a perfect place where there’d be no fear of casualties but still in plain sight.

He turns around and there she is, obviously sneaking up on him. In the night her hair looks eerie, afire with no darkness that can dull it. Her green eyes reflect the light like a cat.

“I know where Janet van Dyne is,” he says.

As he expects her eyes barely waver. They just stare at him unblinking.

“Now,” he orders before she can attack and the floor lights up in pink and Danielle jumps in and twists Romanoff around in a lock. Romanoff does fight it, but the shooting, stabbing, and electrocuting only makes the bulletproof heroine look slightly bemused at having her costume ruined. The Widow twitches and stops fighting them in favor of observing. And Steve knows that once the Widow starts talking, there will be a likelier chance for her to break free. He’s read her reports and watched the debriefs, and he is not going to underestimate just how well her silver tongue works.

So he pulls up the titanium siren and cuts up her suit. She doesn’t make a sound, just stares over her shoulder at him, her eyes wide, a hallow imitation of fear on her face. He removes the body armor, until he is looking at her naked spine. Danielle is down right glaring at him now, but Steve taps at the neck vertebrae in between cervical and the thoracic. The piece of flesh is spotted with red marks. When the Widow can feel where Steve is touching, she starts screaming. He takes a deep breath, makes sure his hands aren’t shaking and stabs the siren near a red mark, injecting the clear liquid. She keeps screaming, trashing in Danielle’s grip. Thankfully the dam is well above ground level, and no one can hear them.

Finally she goes loose and slumps down on her stomach.

\-----

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Steve asks when they’ve both settled down in some diner. He stirs his milkshake. She stares at her rooibos tea, her eyes scanning the café. She’s dressed in a jacket and sweats, civilian clothes they had found in her bag when she had woken up. She looks relaxed, but he senses she is shaken.

“What should I remember?” she immediately turns the questions.

Steve taps his fingers. She looks down at them before looking up at him again. “Do you know why people are taking pictures of us?” he asks. The red hair and green eyes are too unmistakable, especially because of their recent clash.

“We make a great couple,” she smiles.

He picks up his phone and it doesn’t take long to find the clip on the web. He hasn’t seen it himself, but it turns out to be a video made of combined cellphone cameras. He shows her the Black Widow attacking him, Captain America dangling from the building, the Widow tazing his arm, her shooting him and kicking him off the building and him disappearing in a red hole that immediately closes after it self, the Falcon and Scarlet escaping in plain sight a minute after.

She doesn’t look stunned, but he has a rough idea where he has her right now.

“You’re a really, really stupid boy,” she says with a hoarse voice.

“I told you I knew where the Wasp was located,” Steve informs. “You didn’t react.”

“I wouldn’t have believed you either way,” Natasha says. “She’s been dead since the Skrull Invasion.”

“If you had been paying attention the past year, you’d know that’s not how I work. Ask T’Challa.”

“How did you know I was… out of commission?” she asks. “Jennifer, Howard, Hank, I have many … comrades. Close to me.”

“Fury told me you tried to retire four years ago,” Steve reminds her. “The next day, you were sent to Beijing. A year later, they find a missing, dead ambassador in a nightclub wall there, who had been a thorn in H.A.M.M.E.R.’s eye and whose body showed marks of your bites. They couldn’t determine death, but you get the point. When you didn’t respond to his signals, Fury just concluded you had picked your side. I believed him.”

“And what made you suspicious?”

“The mind control serum has been in the works for years and I know it was especially used on incarcerated foreign spies. I figured that you being – being injected was a possibility. Besides, you’ve been working on redeeming yourself all these years and then you’re suddenly H.A.M.M.E.R’s private assassinator?”

“Last time I checked, being nearly killed doesn’t make people more clearheaded,” she replies harshly. “It makes them angry and scared.”

He blinks at her. “I had some time thinking about it,” he answers, unsurely. He’s not going to tell her that his dead friend pointed out that it all seemed suspicious. “It’s actually really dumb that it didn’t occur to me before.”

“Only if you always expect people’s actions to make sense,” she says, staring at him.

“You see?” Steve asks, waving his hand. “If you hadn’t been controlled, you’d figure out a way better way to kill me just by analyzing me.”

Natasha suddenly stands up and leaves the place. He waves over a waiter and pays the tab.

She’s standing outside and the casualty she had shown before is fractured and gone. She’s shaking, her small hands becoming white and red and she’s staring out into the air with an unreadable expression. “I ran away from one government,” she says in a clear voice. “Just to become mind controlled by another. I’m gonna. I’m gonna find them. The ones who decided this, the ones who performed it, Hell, the people who invented…”

“You’re not. The Resistance has been building up and fighting for equality for almost a decade and your revenge? It is not going to destroy the effort of thousands. Sorry, but you’re far from the only one with a tragic story and you don’t matter more than the rest of them. This is your chance to be part of something bigger.”

She finally looks at him. “I’m a spy. Not a soldier.”

“None of us are,” Steve says. “None of us wanted to be.”

Black Widow looks down. And then back up at him. “What do you want me to do?”

\----

When Steve gets back home, the air is thick. He closes the door and realizes it has several bolts now and a frame made out of a metal Steve can’t distinguish. He looks around and the twins and Sam are sitting silently in front of the TV, fleetingly giving him a glance and then quickly looking away. Clint looks up from his nest and ducks. Even Peter digs his nose further into his books.

The basement is completely silent and the starry sky projector is turned off. He’s not sure if it’s because of the tension or because the Avengers got tired of it while he was recovering. Steve hasn’t been very awake the past couple of days.

The silence is starting to bug him. He’s happy that Tony has made sure that there’s some sort of order, but the Avengers look a lot like the kids who didn’t dare speak with the kid in the timeout basket.

Tony steps out of the bathroom. “You’re here,” he says and he almost succeeds in not showing the passive aggressiveness.

“Yeah,” Steve confirms and then points at the door. “Mind showing me how you do this?”

He puts the shield down as Tony stomps through the room and militantly starts showing Steve the way it works.

“You know, when we first met, I didn’t consider the major you were taking,” Tony talks, casually. “I just thought that you had a nice ass and broad shoulders. All that,” Tony looks down at his body, “and wit too? The way the other teachers spoke about you, a boy who was a boy, but with his shit together. I wasn’t dumb enough to let you get away.”

Steve can hear the frustration, the bitterness. And if he really listens he can hear regret.

With a last violent tug, Tony turns from the door and stares at him.

Steve doesn’t know what to do. To make this right, or to make Tony understand or to make himself understand. “I don’t know what to say.”

“God fuck, Steve, you come from such an ugly place and you make me forget that, you make it look so pretty, you make it look so easy, right until you pull this stunt,” Tony yells and his Adam’s Apple sinks, as his voice cracks. It still feels better than the low cutting voice.

Steve takes a deep breath. “She needed my help.”

“You couldn’t have _known_ ,” Tony shouts. “All you had to do was stay safe, but you forgot where your home was, you forgot that there are people waiting for you here, you forgot that the moment you dragged us in, you weren’t just your own anymore. I love a _boy_ , not a _memorial_ and I don’t care how many bullets they shoot you with, I knew loving Captain America meant I had to piece you together at some point anyway.”

Tony stops to breathe and his lungs are audibly rattling. He’s been smoking.

“Then tell me how I’m supposed to treat my home,” Steve asks and he knows he’s shaking. “Teach me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make the author happy and motivated :D


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iron Man goes with them to every one of their covert missions now. But he has Stark Resilient and a social image to maintain besides that and sometimes Steve worries that Tony’s going to run himself into the ground. But it’s good having him there, both as Iron Man on missions and just as Tony, on the couch, working, his feet slipping underneath Steve’s thighs to get warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mention of eating disorder! About half a year passes by in relative peace. Domestic avengers :D

Time passes slowly after that. The riots are making sure that the government strikes at a glacial pace, and the Avengers have time to settle. Steve takes up work again and goes back to school (he had been absent for a week, it appears). Black Widow goes back to Fury and at some point Mr. Stark found out about Tony being Iron Man.

There’s two days of panic because Tony and Steve find out that the twins are actually Jewish and that Hanukkah is coming up and Tony and Steve are sweeping the apartment and buying a menorah and getting certain foods ready.

“It’s not a big deal,” Wanda complains as Tony and Steve argue how to play with the dreidel.

“Of course it is,” Steve says.

“Our mom just raised us like that because that’s what Dad would’ve wanted,” Pietro comments, already playing with his own set of dreidels. “She wasn’t Jewish herself.”

There’s a story there, but Steve doesn’t want to nag and he understands why they are the way they are a little bit better. None of the other Avengers are very religious, but they agree to go to Midnight Mass with him. Faizah doesn’t celebrate Christmas, but she “believes and respects Christ as a prophet” and agrees to go with them, even when Tony offers to stay with her. But the hints of stories and low expectations around the clubhouse tell Steve, that maybe not all of them know how to celebrate Christmas. _Which is absurd because Christmas is the best._

Not that Steve is an expert, but he knows that Christmas isn’t so much the tree and the decorations, but the spirit of it. Tony goes overboard with the gifts to the surprise of absolutely no one, probably to compensate for leaving early to go see his family on the West Coast. Peter spends two hours on the phone with his aunt, at some point choking up and they eat jelly-filled donuts, Halal and Kosher turkey and it’s not like Steve remembers the years before, but it’s _theirs_.

\----

January Steve and Clint holds their meeting with Bernie, and Steve is pacing in front of the office and tries to make use of the time, while every third student drops by and asks him what’s going on and then Tony shows up, which really just escalates the nervousness since Tony isn’t especially calm himself.

Clint comes out of the office with tense shoulders and they all know what Clint being on the defensive means. But three days later they receive the letter that Clint jumped the queue and got accepted and they celebrate for two days. Clint is relaxed about it right until his first day of school and becomes a nervous wreck.

Steve deliberately lets him walk around on his own and eats lunch with him when he can, but mostly Steve and Clint have classes on different days. At first, Clint has a hard time getting friends, but it’s admittedly because Clint thinks he needs to keep a low profile. When he gets it into his head that he can talk to people, he gets a seat at the table with the more relaxed kids and of course, Steve was never nervous about it.

\----

Iron Man goes with them to every one of their covert missions now. But he has Stark Resilient and a social image to maintain besides that and sometimes Steve worries that Tony’s going to run himself into the ground. But it’s good having him there, both as Iron Man on missions and just as Tony, on the couch, working, his feet slipping underneath Steve’s thighs to get warm.

\----

Five times a day Faizah goes into her room in a gown to pray. She says that the prayer isn’t verbally free, but she does have certain people in her thoughts as she does it. For the first time since Ma died, God hears Steve’s name again, God hears all of their names. And it’s irrational, Steve has never been that religious, but he feels at peace, he feels blessed.

\----

February Steve stops by his mother’s grave and puts down white lilies. He knows it’s naïve to assign her the meaning of these flowers, but he can’t help but remember her in any other way.

He’s already talked Tony away from going with him. He knows they’re all afraid he will pull another Bucky. He hates himself for worrying this way.

But he feels at peace and not messed up when he arrives, slightly proud. He sits down on the old graveyard, not far away from Dad’s, and leans up towards the gravestone. And slowly, slowly he starts to tell her everything. He tells her that Bucky is dead. That he’s met someone he loves and trusts. That he found a place he can call home.

As he leaves the graveyard, Tony is waiting in a car outside and Steve gets in. He doesn’t feel like crying and doesn’t feel angry anymore, he feels empty and he takes a deep breath, before he leans into Tony’s shoulder. Tony’s strokes his hair and rests his cheek against the top of Steve’s head.

\----

February, Black History month, Danielle goes through a belated rebellious phase.

Or well, not rebellious. It’s just that Danny always tried to raise her the way the Cages would’ve wanted it, and because of Danny’s tough schoolings, she’s been raised in “zen and kung fu” as Clint likes to put it. Which meant a focus on inner spirituality instead of outer appareance.

It’s not exactly rebellious, it’s just… experimental. Yeah, that’s a better word. She bleaches and dip dyes her hair in electric and dodger blue. When she gets her first salary, she exchanges her plain wardrobe with denim, oversize and studs. She goes to clubs and bars, goes to the Afropunk Festivals, starts listening to alternative music. She wants to get piercings really badly, which becomes a problem with her nearly unbreakable skin. And of course, Tony only sees this as a challenge; two days later, Steve is holding her head as she gets her skin penetrated for the first time in her life and she cries out, more in surprise than the pain.

After that, it goes a little overboard. She gets a piercing in her chin and her brow and of course, a row of them in both of her ears, but then she seems to be satisfied.

\----

Pietro doesn’t take the calm well.

Steve doesn’t notice it, and it’s actually Clint who brings it to his attention. Pietro never finishes his plate and from the moment they’re all aware of it, Pietro stops trying. He stops eating.

They try to negotiate. Pietro agrees to the three meals everyday. When it becomes clear that it’s very limited what Pietro can put in his mouth, it all ends up being rise porridge. He gets an iron deficiency. They try to pack the porridge with as many nutrients they can without Pietro noticing. It doesn’t help. He burns through it too quickly.

Pietro starts throwing up. Not willingly, he just can’t keep the food down. He starts eating crackers and water instead of porridge. _Pietro burns 4000 calories on days he’s not even exercising_.

Pietro stops drinking water. They watch with horror as his already skinny frame becomes even thinner; how his ribs starts showing even through his shirt, how he puts on four sweaters because he’s always cold. His mood dives. Tony has a psychologist at the ready, but Pietro doesn’t want to, he doesn’t trust outsiders.

They threaten him. They beg him, they plead. He won’t talk with them for days when they stop bringing him to missions.

Eating disorders are the most fatal mental illnesses; either it’s suicide or your body giving up on you. Pietro doesn’t want them to say that, he doesn’t want to acknowledge how validly this is becoming a problem. The Avengers are walking on eggshells; Steve can’t be in school without constantly worrying if Pietro is going to get a heart attack. Clint quits his part-time job so he can stay with Pietro, who’s becoming too exhausted to leave the couch. It’s only when Wanda breaks and takes to crying everyday. It breaks him a little harder but it does make him eat for a few days. He throws up again. Forces himself to go to the psychologist. With the Stark celebrity status, it’s too suspicious for Tony to show up as Pietro’s legal conservator, and Steve being the only one with a proper, official record steps up. The psychologist asks about the dynamic at home and Steve keeps things vague, and the psychologist is careful not to ask too much; Steve has a feeling Tony has spoken to her about that. She teaches him ways to deal with being a family member of someone with an eating disorder – she teaches him how to treat Pietro, how to deal with bad days, talks to him about what Pietro is going through. He listens to all of it and goes home to tell the rest of the Avengers.

Eventually things stop going downhill. Things don’t get better either. Pietro knows they – _Wanda_ , will take drastic measures such as compulsory hospitalization if she has too. There are a couple of mutant-friendly hospitals around the country. They’re not safe, but it could buy them time.

Thankfully, in the end, it doesn’t have to come to that.

\----

One night Sam’s driving Tony’s Mercedes through Manhattan to pick up Danielle from a nightclub.

When they come back Danielle is crying, her tie-dye denim vest is riddled with bullets and Sam’s been shot in the arm. Some cops had pulled them over and even after Sam had shown them license and registration, the situation had heated up. Danielle, having lived on the more peaceful and less diverse side of the country, has listened to far too many of Faizah’s rants about your human rights and resists when the police decides to frisk them.

Steve doesn’t know the details, but the situation had escalated and the two had ended up fleeing the vehicle.

It had happened in Harlem. There hadn’t been any witnesses. The two cops had been in duty for a few years already, felt safe with their gun and authority, and the most decisive factor: Danielle and Sam are black.

Steve knows how bad it could get, knew black students using college as shelter. He has covered for a couple of them too, and that might be suspicious behavior and, in theory, a stupid way to act when there’s no guarantee that these students hasn’t done anything, and yet, not really, when cops these days can get away with just about anything and charge black people with whatever they want. Steve grew up in Brooklyn; it’d take a blind man not to notice the discrimination. He feels enraged and powerless. He’s a history student, so of course he knows that the issue goes even deeper than this; SHRA is relatively new compared to black rights. He can preach and break up fights as much as he can, but what to do with such a deep-rooted huge problem… he’s not that clever. Will never be.

And he feels ashamed, because he has allowed himself to forget how it is for some people; he knows there’s no use for white guilt and yet still he feels it. Like with Bucky he’s forgotten how real the problem is until it hits his loved ones, and _this can’t be the only way people learn, dammit._

It’s not the first time Sam’s been in that sort of trouble, and mentally he heals fine, but the scars are really starting to take up space on his body. Danielle, on the other hand, is genuinely shaken about how far racial profiling could go.

“I feel powerless,” she admits. “I feel scared. Which is ridiculous when they can’t even hurt me.”

Steve nods and thinks about what he can say; should say. How can he be encouraging without seeming non-caring? How can he be optimistic without being naïve? Be supporting without making it about him? Be blameless without being ignorant? Because he does have a privilege and it means that he doesn’t have to be scared about being pulled over. “A caretaker at the orphanage used to say that the reason your father is the first African-American superhero is because he’s a black person a gun can’t kill,” he blurts out. Good job, Captain America, good job. Danielle looks away. God, Steve just had to bring up her shitty family situation too.

“I’m sure there’ve been tons of black heroes,” Steve clarifies. “Your father was just a lot more public. But a gun can tear through flesh. And a cop’s gun will do it and get away with it too.”

He can see her closing in and he reaches out, closing his hand around hers. Her fingers are short and her palm broad. They make the perfect fists when closed.

“But your Dad had a gift. And what you’re experiencing right now… it’s his legacy, Dani,” Steve tries. “I know you probably feel demonized, and it feels stupid having to say it at all, but you and other black people own America just as much as white folks do – you make up our history. Your ancestors have probably lived here for far longer than mine have, and weirdly enough, no one are calling me an Irish-American. You have the right to be angry.”

Finally she speaks. “Sam doesn’t seem to be angry about it. And Faizah is black, but her hijab speaks louder than her race and she’s knows how to deal with how people treat both.”

Steve waits.

“I set out for my parents, you know? My father. What symbol he became. What he meant to Danny. And I’ve met people, you and Clint and Tony and the twins. I met you and I stopped being angry so much.”

“But now?”

“I don’t know what it means anymore. To be black and a patriot. I don’t really feel like I love this country most of the time. I mean. Things are shit, Cap. Don’t deny it, I know all you do with Faizah is rave about Republicans and misogyny and class differences. How can you even hold onto that uniform?”

Steve breathes out and is silent for a moment. “To me, America - The American Dream. Is an idea.” When she just looks dubious, he continues: “America isn’t only a white bully on the tombs of the Native Americans and black slaves… Both are, of course, essential and inexcusable factors to who we became, but America is also Martin Luther King and the sexuality movement… It’s people like your father. It isn’t about blindly supporting your nation. It never was. It’s about what your country can be, what it should be… and trying to lead it there through your example. And holding it accountable when it fails.”

“I shouldn’t be responsible for what every biracial girl does,” Danielle protests.

“All you have to be is a good person and you shouldn’t do that for anyone but yourself,” Steve agrees. “Look, there’s nothing patriotic about crooked cops and corruption in the court system or cover-ups. Or defending them, for that matter. But exposing them takes a hero, and you’re doing that so well.”

“I just don’t want to be so goddamn angry while doing it, Cap,” she half-yells.

Steve shrugs. “As Faizah says, being angry means paying attention. You just have to find a way to deal with that anger without it taking over and turning into another Magneto.”

He gets kicked in the shin for that, but after that she asks about his parents and how they immigrated.

But after the conversation, Steve hates himself even more because he feels like he’s compromising. He shouldn’t be sitting there and telling her to not become too angry, because this is far from her fault and she isn’t the one who needs to get a hold of herself. She’s not the person who deserves to live like this.

Thankfully, Tony takes far more action than Steve can. An army of lawyers approaches the NYPD and the fact that Tony has no official records with these two people is shot down immediately, and the two cops get fired. Far from satisfied, Tony hires people to look into what the Hell the deputy inspector had been doing, only to reveal falsification of reports and a huge number of complaints about ignored hate crimes and some police officers’ own performed discrimination. With other words money makes the world go round and before three days, the whole NYPD is on its head. Over a quarter of the NYPD looses their badges, a new deputy inspector is hired; it’s all very public and Tony Stark is nationally applauded as a fighter for equality and justice.

It all goes straight into Steve’s patriotic heart.

\----

Steve feels like he’s unraveling. Not in a bad way, not in a hollow way. But like. He’s getting thinner, mentally. At first he thinks it’s boredom, but how can that be when he feels so content all the time? He works, he meets new people, starts drawing again and exercising.

But he just feels like he’s. Unraveling. Like some importance in him is winding down, even though it’s not like he misses being Captain America all the time. Now that he’s mostly just Steve, he understands how mentally exhausting it had been.

It’s hard to put into words, really. But it’s like his emotional life and his thoughts are running out or like he’s starting to forget. Yeah, that’s how it feels. Like he’s forgetting something.

\----

Steve finishes paying off his loan and pays for Clint’s tuition. It’s quite a hole in his savings, and he tries to compensate by working 35 hours a week. Wanda gets a boyfriend.

Steve asks Faizah to go back to England. He knows he needs her, but her mental health is skydiving. She has already held out for an amazingly long time, considering what she so recently went through. The team tries to get her through the bad days, but the nights she wakes up screaming are increasing. Six months of zone 42 will do that to you, but it’s not turning for the better.

Steve knows she needs to go somewhere where she’s safe, where she can get help instead of spending an hour screaming into her pillow. T’Challa is kind, provides her with doctors and dentists, a privilege not many metahumans have and he’d probably provide for the rest of the Avengers if they weren’t all too mistrustful bastards. But there’s only so much Wakandan shrinks can do to settle her trauma. So Steve sends her to England, to her father and the rest of her family there and an assigned shrink who’s spoken to many SHRA refugees before.

She doesn’t cry standing in the airport, but at this point her clothes probably weigh more than she does. “I’m sorry,” she says. “For breaking.” And that’s so wrong, everything he can’t stand, but she turns before he can speak or even touch her and he watches her disappear in the flight tube.

Black Widow finally locates Hank Pym on some island where’s he’s happily living in an anthill. Literally. Steve finds out that Tony really, really don’t like cockroaches. A shrill noise is coming from the armor and Clint and Pietro flat out refuses to go anywhere near the house. Wanda’s magic synchronizes with nature and it takes more than some bugs to scare Jewel off. Steve should’ve brought Peter, but he’s doing a test on Monday.

“Dude,” Steve says, looking at the camera. “Seriously, you just disarmed half of my squat, come out and laugh at us or something.”

A microphone is turned on. “What do you want,” someone grumpy asks and Steve half-expects an old man running out with a riffle, shouting _Get off my property!_   

“There’s been a sighting on a giant woman we think is using the Pym particles,” Steve says, because stating the unbelievable miracle truth is something Steve has learned not to do since T’Challa. “I’ve seen her. She’s human, Pym. This is your invention.”

“You just want me to go back to the USA!” Pym accuses. “Stop them, my pets! Obey your leader! The Ant-Man commands you!”

The streams of ants start against them. Iron Man sways and Steve grabs his bicep. “Stop that, you big man child! An innocent woman is confined because of your invention; take some damn responsibility! Oh my god, _Falcon_!”

A group of birds dive down from the sky and starts anting. Hank shouts in outrage.

“Come out or we’re coming in ourselves!” Steve threatens, even though he’s pretty sure Tony isn’t really up for blocking the alarming signal.

“Fine!” the scientist hisses and after around four minutes, the man himself is standing there in a lab coat, a scrubby beard and a very unpleasant smell. He still looks good though, younger than most of his generation. Pym looks them up and down and scoffs.

\-----

When Henry Pym fearlessly dives into Old Manhattan to find this estranged mystery woman, Steve and the Avengers are listening in. Pym is special. He seems to put himself above the likelihood of death, which in a way makes sense when you haven’t lived with the rumors and news articles Old Manhattan often breeds. He waves Howard away when the engineer oversees the submarine, calls him ‘a blemish to the good name of science’ and when counseling Bruce, he huffs out ‘Good lord, Bruce, what is it with you and bombs?’

His honesty is endearing but Steve can imagine how draining it would be to hang around Pym all the time; or worse, try to work with him.

The speaker goes completely silent when Pym has turned on the lights of the submarine and is staring at the huge body of one Janet Van Dyne, hair long on, brows outgrown and mussels and their barnacles growing on her back. She’s as big as Steve recalls, but sleeping this time and the sick Atlanteans are hiding underneath her arms and behind her legs and between her feet, glaring at the submarine.

When the silence has been going on for a little too long, Steve clears his throat, turns on the mic and asks: “So… how are things down there? Do you see anything useful? What do you need?”

“You knew.”

It’s a statement, not a question. So Steve doesn’t answer.

“It’s Jan,” Pym says. He sounds like he has been robbed.

This should be a triumphant, joyful moment.

Talking with the dead isn’t always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: OMGOMG i forgot to [source the article](http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=54868) that presents the meaning of Luke Cage as a power fantasy. Totally not me who made the brilliant point.  
>   
> Also, this conversation between Steve and Danielle originates (it's slightly changed) from a conversation between Bucky and Patriot (Young avengers #11-12), where Bucky tries to think of what Steve would have said. I think it'd be nice to bring up that problematic side of things too.  
>   
> Drop a comment. Constructive feedback is always appreciated :)


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the sex scene quickly got a dom/sub undertone, so if that's not your cup of tea, go ahead and skip it. if it is, well, I hope you enjoy :D

In the middle of April, Easter takes in at the same time with Tony’s birthday. Tony is going to celebrate it in Malibu and he’s bringing Bruce. Steve is also invited. The break at school is a rare opportunity of vacation.

At this point, Tony and Steve are just sort of melted together. They’ve found a routine, a way to be friends and partners and lovers. They lead the Avengers and makes sure the members are content and functional, make sure everybody goes to work and school and have other relations besides the Avengers.

Steve’s forgotten how to be Tony’s fake boyfriend. Last time he saw Tony’s family, they knew he was fake. Well, they think Steve’s a freedom fighter and that the fundament of Tony’s and his relationship are founded on the rebellion towards SHRA.

They get into the private jet and Steve can tell that Tony is nervous too and still they fall asleep almost right away. Steve has wiped his body with the DNA wipe, so all he can smell is Tony’s aftershave and the product he puts in his hair. After about an hour, turbulence wakes Steve up and he untangles his fingers from Tony’s to go to the bathroom. His face feels ashy and bloodless, and when he leaves the bathroom, Tony is blinking awake too and he doesn’t look a lot better. Without saying anything, Steve goes to the bar and makes hot chocolate, pouring some Bailey into it.

\----

Tony is kinda tipsy when they arrive to the airport and Happy, who’s there to pick them up, shoots them a sour look and Steve loses the feeling of being lightweight and instead starts feeling a little like he’s going to throw up. This is all an awful idea.

California is warm and there are also not a lot of killer robots in the sky, which is always a plus. The Malibu Mansion is located on a cliff tipping over a roused ocean, and Happy expertly makes way as the streets get less and less crowded. A mix of the swirling ways and the change in temperature do make Tony carsick, so the car loses its roof and Tony takes the passenger seat.

“The boss pulled an all-nighter, since he knew you’d be tired once you got here,” Happy informs. “You can make JARVIS order some takeout.”

“The usual on yours?” Tony asks Steve. “Or, does the old man dare to try something new?”

“At least the old man can eat spicy food,” Steve replies.

“She coated it with chili,” Tony turns around to accuse.

Steve shrugs and closes his eyes. “Then let me try whatever people here eat.”

“What about you, Happy?” Tony asks. “Yes, hello, you’re speaking with the Stark Residence. I’d like – “

Happy rolls his eyes and says “Whatever”.

The Malibu Mansion is, if anything, even more overdone and dramatic than Stark Mansion and Stark Tower. It’s made of red garnet and black-tuned windows. It has a launching pad. The roof looks like a racing track. Palm Trees. A swimming pool that’s bigger than the safe house the Avengers are living in.

“You like it?” Tony asks him, smiling. “I designed most of it. Besides that despicable garnet.”

Steve smiles. “What would you have chosen?”

“Enhanced dry stone. Fine-polished.”

“Surprisingly old-fashioned. Are you sure you’re a futurist?”

“Hey,” Tony says in mock-warning. “There’s nothing wrong with natural resources.”

“You sure you couldn’t pump it up with something, perhaps change the atoms around a bit – “

“That’s not even my expertise,” Tony scoffs.

\----

Happy tries to lead them to separate rooms, and Tony just makes a face at him, before pulling Steve inside his room and closing the door.

“There’s no reason to be rude,” Steve chides, because he feels like someone is supposed to.

“The pizza is here in ten minutes,” Tony says and then swings around with a little smile, closing his hands together. He looks like the perfect host, right until his smirk gets something slick and endearingly charming about it. “Want to take a bath first?” he purrs.

Steve lifts a brow. “Why do I have the suspicion that it might take more than ten minutes?”

“Come on, Steve,” Tony smiles, coming closer. “We haven’t had some true alone time in a while.” He wiggles his brows for emphasis.

It’s true. The clubhouse is always crowded, and Tony can’t be seen too often around Stark Tower, considering he’s supposed to be in Malibu. The first couple of times they had gone out besides that, Tony would pay for a hotel room, but after that Steve had felt too bad to let Tony keep doing it (“Steve, I am loaded,” Tony had exclaimed. “You know what, that reminds me that it isn’t fair that you can pay for Clint’s tuition and I can’t buy food!” Which isn’t the same at all, because Tony has already invested too much money in renovating the clubhouse. But that’s an old argument by now). After that, dirty business usually went down in the backseat of Tony’s car(s) and a single time in a locked solarium room. Steve had thought it happened spontaneously, but when Tony turned out to be prepped and lubricated, Steve had figured out the younger’s schemes. Point is they haven’t had as much sex as someone their age should.

Steve follows Tony into his large bathroom. The Jacuzzi is already bubbling and once again, Tony has lured him in.

“Relax,” the younger smiles charmingly and wraps his hands around Steve’s neck. “We’re on vacation. I bet it’ll be at least two hours before any of them calls.”

“You underestimate them,” Steve smiles, because the Avengers aren’t that helpless, and Tony slips away from him, pulling off his clothes before dipping into the water. Steve sighs and soon follows. The water feels nice and soothing against Steve’s muscles and he can feel himself start to relax. 

“Good, huh?” Tony grins and nears him. Steve glares at him, because he knows Tony’s intensions and already knows how good Tony is at wrapping Steve around his little finger. It’s hard to fight though, when you don’t exactly mind those intensions, even if they’re kind of inappropriate when they’ve only just arrived and Tony’s father has already tried to separate them.

“Let me enjoy this for a second, Tony Shark,” Steve warns.

“A little massage,” Tony offers. “To my big strong hero.”

“You flatter me, Iron Man,” Steve smiles. “Maybe a little bit?”

Tony smirks. “Get on my lap.”

Steve narrows his eyes. “What kind of massage is this?”

“Come on,” Tony continues. “I want to try something.”

Steve sighs and crosses the small distance. Tony firmly grabs his thighs (when had his hands become so big?) and with the feather effect water has, easily transfers him unto his lap. It raises Steve a few inches over Tony, and it makes Steve feel ridiculous and too big on the brunet’s body. Tony smirks as if he notices Steve’s nervousness, and decides to safely place his hands around Steve’s waist.

They feel snug and Steve knows his middle is ridiculously small comparing to his shoulders, but have Tony’s hands always been this big? He stirs uncomfortably. “You’re sure my weight isn’t too…” He clears his throat.

“Nah,” Tony assures, smile turning soft. “Enhanced, remember?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathes.

Tony’s smile is steadily growing. “What’re you so nervous about, Steve?” he enquires, leaning in so their noses almost touch.

Steve shrugs and feels Tony’s fingers creep across his ass cheeks. He can feel the flush begin in his face and go all the way down. “Tony,” he says, embarrassed, and Tony chuckles, his fingers creeping closer to Steve’s crack –

There’s the sound of a door being smacked open and rushing steps. “Goddammit Tony, I’ve already told you that if you’re ordering pizza you need to get the god damn door yourself!“

“Oh my God, Dad, get out – !“ Tony screams.

Howard rounds the corner and freezes. Steve presses his face into Tony’s neck and pretends he doesn’t exist.

“Dad!” Tony yells again and Howard coughs into his hands. Steve only looks up when he hears the door close.

They’ve both become very soft.

“Let’s go get dinner,” Steve says and kisses Tony’s nose. Tony wrinkles it before he grabs the soap and they leisurely clean each other before exiting the Jacuzzi.

\----

That night Tony has a nightmare. He doesn’t usually have them, but he wakes up with a start and looks wildly around. Immediately his eyes go black. Long tense minutes go by as Tony does whatever he needs to, before the black sclera slips back into its natural white. His eyes fall down on Steve. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

Steve shrugs. He had been dozing, his body still not quite sure whether he can rest in a foreign place like this. Mix that with how few hours of rest he needs, and dozing becomes a familiar place.

Tony has shared bed (futon) with him for four months now so he already knows that. “I’m going to read,” he announces and a little night lamp turns on. “You’re too fucking hot.”

Steve shrugs again. Despite the California temperature and Steve’s furnace body heat, he actually feels a little cold. He guesses it’s some kind of homesickness. “How are they?” he whispers.

“Fine,” Tony replies and Steve notices that he doesn’t need to check Extremis, before he reports: “They’re all sleeping in the living room with ice cream.”

“Has Pietro finished his?” Steve asks, feeling kind of silly about making Tony re-check, but Tony immediately nods. “Yep. It was Vanilla-Mango.”

Steve nods and makes a low noise. Tony throws off the summer blanket and before Steve can protest and pull him back in, Tony throws the blanket on top of Steve’s face and proceeds to dig in-between the pillows for a tablet. Steve rolls to his side. “What are you working on?”

Tony is checking on the super sentinel schematics again, something both of them have already gone over multiple times, but there is something in their code Tony feels particularly troubled by. He explains and Steve only gets half of it, and soon Tony takes to glaring and frowning silently at the screen, while Steve dozes. It’s floating in endless moments of bliss.

When he wakes up, two hours later, the bed is empty and the tablet is gone. He sighs and hugs a pillow into his arms before letting go. The loneliness and dread make him get up though.

“Bathroom, Steve?” the AI asks.

“No thank you. Where’s Tony?” Steve asks.

JARVIS helpfully turns on the lights to lead the way and Steve follows them down to the living room. It’s six AM but Pepper and Howard are already up, sitting at a table with a glass wall behind them, sliding around holograms while speaking French. Must be an international teleconference. 

Steve looks around and spots Tony on one of the couches. His tablet is in his hands, but he’s staring blankly through Extremis. Steve sighs. Tony looks even worse than earlier.

He opens the glass doors to the living room and Pepper and Howard shoot him a quick look. Standing in the light he squints and rubs sleep out of his eyes, before he walks over to the couch.

“Tony,” he calls out. Tony doesn’t move. “Tony, when are you coming to bed.”

Tony blinks and hums. “Don’t worry about it, go back to bed.”

Steve sighs and rubs his eyes a little more. Tony is already back using Extremis. Tsk.

He walks over to the couch and sits down closely beside him. Tony shoots him a quick exasperated look, before Steve takes the couch blanket and unfolds it on both of them. Leaning in, he presses his naked torso into Tony’s side and leans his head into Tony’s shoulder.

“What are you working on?” he asks.

Tony sighs. “Confidential to Stark Resilient.”

“Oh, alright,” Steve says, already dozing. “Is it important?”

“Yes?”

“Really?”

Steve leans in and kisses Tony’s jawline.

“Quit it, Steve, I need to finish this,” Tony says. “Come on, it will be an hour, at most.”

“You do your thing,” Steve permits, and cups his arms around Tony’s sides, and presses his face into Tony’s neck, breathing him in. Slowly he brings up a knee to Tony’s lap.

“Steve,” Tony says, sounding mildly annoyed now, but slightly grinning.

“Hm?” Steve asks, kissing a spot and biting it gently. Tony brings a hand into Steve’s hair and slightly tugs it up, so they’re looking at each other.

“I really need – “ Tony begins and Steve leans in and kisses him on his open mouth. Tony breathes out and tugs in Steve’s hair again. Steve crams his legs tighter around Tony’s body.

“Come to bed,” Steve nudges him and smiles. Just a little bit. “I will make it worth your while.”

“Sounds promising.”

“Won’t know if you stay here,” Steve smiles and takes away the tablet. Tony sighs dramatically, and Steve shrugs off the blanket and gets up, getting Tony up on his feet.

As soon as they get to the bedroom Tony lies down on his back and smiles invitingly. Steve crawls in with him and pulls the summer blanket over them. Tony kicks it off and whines obnoxiously.

“Steeeve,” he says and Steve giggles before rolling on top of him. Tony’s hands immediately go down to his ass, and his long fingers knead Steve’s cheeks. Steve rubs against him, using his whole body to press and grind against every inch of Tony’s skin, because he knows that drives Tony crazy. It only takes a minute of frotting, before they’re both hard and Steve lowers himself down to kiss Tony’s mouth. Tony returns it hungrily and Steve is reminded how suddenly they were cut off last evening and that he really, really likes sex. He pulls back to kiss Tony’s cheeks and his jaw, when Tony’s hands finally slip beneath Steve’s waistband and tugs both pants and underwear down. Steve shudders as he enjoys the naked feel of Tony’s hands on his flesh and he’s about to reach down for Tony’s cock, when Tony whispers: “You’ve ever taken it from the back?” against his neck.

Steve hesitates even as he shivers hard by the thought. “Yeah.”

Tony stills now and Steve guesses that it isn’t the answer he expected. “I thought you had never been with guys?” Tony asks.

“I haven’t,” Steve confirms. “Didn’t make me less of twink material at the time though.”

Tony frowns and looks up and into Steve’s eyes. “Twink?”

Steve blinks. “Sam didn’t tell you,” Steve says and feels a little ashamed. He had assumed that Sam would put his past and pathetic figure on disclosure, but it appears Sam has kept his mouth sealed shut.

“Doesn’t matter,” Steve shakes his head.

He tugs down Tony’s pajamas and fondles his balls, before palming his cock. A long moan escapes Tony’s lips as he tilts up and takes Steve’s mouth, occupying it with insistence and fire and bites and then suddenly they’re rolled around and Tony’s grinding down on Steve. Steve gasps and lets the younger spread his legs. His hands slide down Steve’s torso until his fingers reach his nipples and combined with the fingers that are starting to rub against his perineum, Steve hisses against the pillow and grinds his hips down harder.

“Can… Can I?” Tony asks, out of breath even if they’ve only just begun and Steve nods shakily. Tony crawls over him, nudging Steve’s balls with his knee as he reaches for his bag and finds a bottle of lube. Steve snorts with laughter.

“What, you think my dad would have let my old supply stay?” Tony grins.

“Always prepared,” Steve grins and for a moment Tony is just sitting over him, his expression still and his eyes fixated on Steve’s face. And oddly slow, completely against the pace they’ve had so far, he leans in kisses Steve gently.

“What is it?” Steve asks and pulls him in to kiss him a little longer.

“I don’t know,” Tony mummers. “I just missed you so much all of the sudden.”

Steve chuckles and rolls them around, even as a wave of déjà vu hits him. “I’m right here, genius,” he says and bite Tony’s chin.

“I don’t know,” Tony says and he still sounds serious. “I couldn’t feel you.”

Steve closes his hands around Tony’s erection. “Do you feel this?”

“You’re so romantic,” Tony pouts, but he’s starting to smile.

Steve gives a trying stroke, watching Tony’s face. The brunet’s back arches and his toes curl – Steve can hear the nails scrape against the fine linen – and Steve keeps stroking him. Tony bites his lip, squints at Steve and flips them over again. Steve laughs and spreads Tony’s knees around his thighs. Tony puts his hands on Steve’s cheeks and the kiss is still slow, still sentimental, but deeper.

Steve’s phone starts ringing.

“Don’t you dare,” Tony says and even though it’s been some time now, Steve very explicitly remembers last time this happened. “Steve, we’re literally – “

“It could be something serious,” Steve says. “Just check who called.”

“I can’t believe this,” Tony groans and Steve makes up for it by pecking kisses all over the outline of his neck.

But by the way Tony relaxes, Steve can guess that it’s nothing serious.

“What is it? Clint. Clint. Clint. We’re fucking. No, seriously we’re literally fucking. Yes, ew, now stop calling between midnight and noon. No, it’s 12 hours, you can do it.”

The black disappears and Steve swallows the huff of laughter that leaves his mouth.

“I love you,” Steve smiles. Tony’s eyes are crinkling as Steve sits up and kisses him on the mouth. “I love you, Tony Stark.”

“I love you too,” Tony smiles and presses in against Steve. “Let me top.”

Steve blinks. “Okay.”

Tony looks slightly surprised. “That was easy.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Steve frowns.

“You always automatically top,” Tony shrugs. “Not that I mind. But.”

Steve kisses his nose. “You mind. It’s okay. I just.”

The only person who knew his ass that intimately had been Peggy. Peggy had made it clear from the beginning that his ass couldn’t be left alone, and even though he had a hard time coming only from behind, he had loved being pegged after orgasm. They’d normally start the lovemaking in the typical positions, slow and thoroughly. Then she’d prep and fuck him with a strap-on and Steve would feel so sensitive and invaded, like he was being undone. Dry orgasms used to shake his world, and when he was done, shaking and sweating he’d settle his head down between her legs and lick her cunt, taste himself and her juices. It usually didn’t take much to make her come that way because pegging was a big turn-on for her. When she had left, he had mentally just closed the gates.

He breathes in and spreads his legs. “Be gentle. It’s been some time.”

Tony grins leisurely at him and rubs his knees. “Are you sure?”

Steve smiles back. “I want you to.”

Tony searches after the forgotten lube and soon Steve’s legs are spread out. Steve takes a deep breath. Why is he so nervous?

“How did your girlfriend used to do this?” Tony asks.

Steve relaxes slightly, and reaches down for his own cock. “Can I come first?”

A little wrinkle forms in between Tony’s brows but he nods and closes his hand around Steve’s. “Let me.”

Steve catches himself on guard so he lets go and spreads his arms around him.

“Not used to being this passive, hon?” Tony cackles and Steve kicks him over the shin.

“Be gentle,” Steve reprimands. “It’s my first time.”

“Right, and gold star lesbians will always be virgins,” Tony teases but then his face melts into something more serious. “Slow?”

Steve nods and Tony grabs a couple of pillows. Steve tilts up his hips to let Tony settle them underneath his loin.

Tony is good. He stops poking and caressing Steve’s ass for a second and focuses on Steve’s mouth. The making out eases Steve’s tensions and the memory of that time Peggy had gone in too fast and the pain had been burning and agonizing and made him come so bad, fades. He settles himself into the present, where Tony’s hands are touching his chest, gently rubbing his nipples and leaving momentary imprints on his neck. The touching and teasing and kissing goes on for so long that Steve’s body starts burning, aching, for the brunet to do something. Tony slides away from his lips and Steve gasps, his face feeling heated.

With thorough care Tony kisses and sucks on Steve’s neck, pinches his nipples until they sting. Steve feels his breath leave him as Tony settles his mouth on top of them, the hotness of it too much.

Tony starts stroking Steve’s cock and Steve’s body jolts in avid, hips moving with the hard and slow rhythm the brunet take. There’s the sound of the cap of the bottle being opened, but the hand on his cock continues to only be slick with Steve’s own pre-cum. The finger that rubs directly over Steve’s hole is slick and Steve feels himself try to open and clench around it.

“Tony,” Steve gulps and the boy obliges, pushes in a fingertip and thrusts it deeper when Steve appears to be looser than he though.

“More,” Steve demands, but forgets all about that when Tony’s head lowers and sucks on the head of Steve’s cock hard without warning. Steve groans loudly and Tony’s gradually takes Steve’s cock further into his mouth and into his throat. Steve throws his head back, trying to catch his breath. Tony pulls out his fingers and Steve’s about to kick him off the god damn bed, when two of his joined fingers drives into Steve’s hole, Tony’s cheeks hallowing as he swallows and Steve yells into the pillow, his cum oozing down Tony’s throat. Tony keeps swallowing and curls his fingers and Steve cries out in astonishment when another hot spurt comes out.

His body is stuck in its tense position as he waits for the pleasure to turn into fatigue and the spotted vision to disappear. As he slumps down again, his body shaking and sweating, Tony lets Steve’s cock slip out of his mouth. It’s still half-hard as if it knows to get ready for what’s to come.

“You like a little burn, Steve?” Tony asks, his voice breath-less as he slicks himself up.

“Yes,” Steve says, even if he has never had pleasant experience with that before, but he needs Tony and he needs him right now. “Give it to me.”

Tony grabs the back of Steve’s knees and relentlessly slides in. Steve makes a broken sound in his chest and whines as Tony immediately starts of a rough pace. So much for being gentle, but Jesus Christ, that’s the last thing Steve needs right now. In comparison to a strap-on, Tony feels hot inside, his cock softer and yet a hotter more thrilling, living experience.

“How many times can you come, Steve?” Tony growls and leans down to hold Steve’s shoulders. “I know you’re holding yourself back with me. Come on.” Steve moans as Tony purposefully angles his hips and hits Steve’s prostate. “I’m young.”

“Uh,” Steve says, looking at him blankly, not sure what the Tony wants. “As many times as… as you want.”

“As I need?” Tony asks.

“Yeah, yeah, Tony, yes,” Steve calls and Tony aims his hips against Steve’s prostate solely now.

“Then do it now,” Tony snaps and Steve whines and comes again. His balls and cock are throbbing. Tony gracelessly grabs a pectoral and clenches his whole hands around it, so Steve’s nipple rubs against his palm, his nails digging into the sweaty, sensitive skin and Steve yells, the burn and pleasure and force feeling like way too much. Tony won’t even let him yell, just leans in and chokes Steve’s sounds and attempts at getting air. Tony keeps pounding into him, even after the aftershocks have ebbed away and Steve cringes for every forceful thrust.

“You want it,” Tony snarls into his ear, licking and biting the earlobe. “God, you’re such a slut for it. Look at you.” He sits up again and looks down at Steve’s exhausted figure, his spread legs. “Spread you out and you lose all your power. Wonder what would happen if people knew. How weak and needy you become with a nice cock in your ass.”

“Tony,” Steve whines, not sure if he’s whining because he wants Tony to stop or to keep going.

“Get on your knees,” Tony breathes and pulls out and Steve rolls around and get on his fours. Tony pushes Steve’s shoulders down into the bed and takes a firm hold on Steve’s hips, pulling them further up. “You’re already so open to me. Can you feel it?”

Steve looks back and Tony digs in two sets of fingers and stretches his hole open to the sides. Steve gasps as the stretch exposes him in a vulnerable way he had forgotten. “Please, Tony,” he mewls. “Be good to me.”

“Yeah?” Tony says and without waiting for an answer, he starts pushing into Steve while his fingers are still stretching him open from the inside. Steve claws at the bed, choking. “How about this?”

It burns. Tears well up in Steve’s eyes as he feels himself try to adjust to the stretch. It’s only the crooked outer knuckles that are inside of him but it’s still four of them, besides Tony’s cock that’s slowly but determinately making room.

“You’re mine,” Tony hisses.

“Yeah,” Steve gasps.

“In all ways,” Tony continues.

“Yeah,” Steve confirms and pushes his face into the pillow to muffle his broken moans. Tony is almost all the way inside but he chooses to push home in a hard thrust and Steve’s body jerks him up, writhing and tensing as he feels Tony’s cock head rub against his spot, every rub a blissful burn.

“You’re ready to come again?” Tony asks and Steve’s about to shake his head, when Tony says: “You better be.”

Steve lowers his head and reaches down for his cock, but it feels too sensitive. Tony rams in, making Steve’s vision explode. Tony does it once and twice and then Steve can feel himself coming again, almost no semen leaving him. When the aftershocks are over and Steve’s body feels like liquid on the sheets, Tony slips his fingers out and says: “I’m gonna come now, clench up.”

Steve groans and does his best, as Tony relentlessly fucks Steve so hard it almost feels stabbing. When Steve can tell by Tony’s moans that he’s about to come, he purposefully clenches his hole extra tight around Tony’s dick and Tony’s groan comes out startled. Next second the younger’s hand is gripping Steve’s hair, pulling Steve’s head back and his ass higher, and shouting he just takes it when his spent prostate gets rammed into.

When Tony finally comes, it’s all hot liquid and sweat dripping onto Steve’s back. Steve relaxes minutely; quivering until his own sweat drops hit the bed. Tony gasps, his body radiating just as much exhaustion as Steve’s. Steve falls down in his own mess and Tony collapses on top of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this project is (finally) almost over! How has it been so far, did it develop like you expected, what's your ultimate imagined fave ending for this story and what do you think I could've/should've done better? I'd really like to know, so I can make some adjustments. Drop of comment for author's motivation c:


	19. Chapter 19

Steve wakes up by Tony pulling out. He jolts which makes Tony hiss.

“What’s the clock?” he asks hoarsely.

“11 am,” Tony answers, his voice raspy. He falls down beside Steve and curls up to him. He smiles when Steve’s eyes meet his.

“You’re wild,” Steve groans and feels tentatively around his ass. Tony’s congealed cum is all over his back and his own is all over his front.

“Well,” Tony blinks sleepily. “Couldn’t have your ex surpass me.”

Steve groans. “I can’t believe you decided to fuck my brains out because of that. You’re an idiot.” He rolls on top of Tony and kisses him. “I’m so in love with you.”

Tony smiles into his mouth. “You liked that. _Twink_.”

Steve blinks and sighs. Tony looks into his eyes. “Can I ask Sam about it?”

Steve thinks about it. “Yeah. Okay.”

\----

The day of Tony’s birthday is busy. Pepper and Happy come over with their kids, and half of Tony’s LA friends drop by to say hello. The mingling and easiness of it looks good on Tony, and it’s nice being introduced and welcomed as Tony’s boyfriend. At some point Howard wakes up and goes out to say hello; he’s polite and appropriately reserved. He stays out just long enough for Rhodey to show up; they say hi. After some hours Steve retreats outside and plays with the kids for a bit.

At evening time it’s finally time to cut the cake and Steve takes a lot of pictures, which he sends to the clubhouse, even as there will undoubtedly be dupes on the www already. Tony kisses him in front of all the guests and Steve leans into it even if he can feel all the pictures being taken that will be in the newspapers tomorrow. At midnight Steve has lost all his energy and retreats outside, but Tony seems to still be having a good time.

And then Tiberius Stone decides to drop by. Steve later on hears from Rhodey that it had probably been because of the trending kiss on social media.

It gets… nasty. Tiberius keeps touching Tony. At first Steve thinks it’s just regular affection, but then his hands wander, a little more inappropriately and a little more determined than before. Steve can feel Tony becoming aware of it too, but Ty laughs it off like nothing is going on. It goes on right until midnight, where Ty leans in and whispers something in Tony’s ear, his fingers splayed on his neck.

“Ty,” Steve calls out and smiles loosely. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure, Stevie!” Tiberius calls out loudly so everyone can hear it. Ty has called Steve that the past hour. Only Bucky ever got to call him that. It’s annoying.

They move into the kitchen and Steve pretends to still be loose with alcohol, leaning into the kitchen table. As soon as the door is closed, he crosses his arms and puts on the stern, disappointed face he makes when freshmen are not behaving. Ty smiles at him.

“So, Stevie, what – “

“Step off.”

Ty lifts his brows. “What?”

“Stop what you’re doing.”

“Which is?”

“You know what. No, be quiet, you’re obvious and you’re not going to stand here and try to tell me what I saw was wrong. You forget I’m new, and I’m not getting enraptured with the gaslighting thing you’ve got going.” Steve lifts his brows and stares at Ty.

“I really think you’ve got something misunderstood,” Ty defends, still smooth and sure.

Steve sighs again. “Whatever. I will say this once, Tiberius, and I hope it’s understood: You go out there and you behave appropriately. You leave the residence. Or we two go outside and settle this between us.”

Ty’s smile fades when he realizes that Steve is very serious. Steve could be wrong, this could be a misunderstanding, but either way Ty is standing with the same choices.

“It’s Tony’s birthday,” Steve sighs when a minute has gone on and Ty still hasn’t answered. “I’d rather we all part as friends, yeah?”

“Yeah, sure, buddy,” Ty grins and makes sure to clap Steve on the back as they leave the kitchen. Tony’s face, which is tainted with worry, loosens a bit at the gesture and he smiles at them and kisses Steve.

2 AM and Steve is ready to find a nice stone to crawl underneath. Tony senses it and gives him one last kiss before sending Steve off to bed. He takes a shower (which is wow being rich must be awesome), and settles underneath the blankets. About an hour later Tony opens the door and sneaks into the bedcovers with him. It feels perfect. It feels like theirs. It feels like everything is finally perfect, Steve being part of Tony’s life as well as Tony is part of Steve’s. It’s their choice. It’s their forever.

\----

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

The ice is ~~always~~ stronger.

\----

Steve wakes up shivering. Tony wakes up because JARVIS alerts that Steve’s body temperature has dropped. Which gets Tony jumping and “ _how the Hell can you become this cold in California?”_ and make Steve go take a warm bath, but the cold is already ebbing away by the time Steve sinks into the water. Tony makes him talk about the nightmare.

“It’s just a nightmare,” Tony sooths when he hears about the ice, the repeating nightmares of sinking, bleeding, everything becoming black. “It scared you, that’s what they do.”

Steve nods, doesn’t want to talk about it further because he doesn’t really believe Tony, even knowing how smart and futuristic Tony is, and with the alarming sense of disappearing mentally, the nightmares have become even more terrifying.

They stay in bed. They talk. Mostly of the things they will do if SHRA is ever pass.


	20. Chapter 20

Steve doesn’t appraise anger or bitterness. He knows – if not from his own example, then from other people – that there’s nothing romantic about revenge. It’s not passion, but something almost as life giving. It’s a burning in your stomach, that gives you life and drive and it’s a burn that’s going to go through your insides like acid.

But. He thinks what make the Avengers the people they are – it’s that they chose to not forget and forgive. There was a sea of numbness with a slight aftertaste of bitterness and fear they chose not to baptize themselves in.

The SHRA is terminated on his birthday. It happens due to different things. The Illuminati going to the government, the Hero Boot Camps emptying, the Resistance’s growth, H.A.M.M.E.R. losing the Black Widow, T’Challa and Stark not building and the Super Sentinels being a failure, Susan Storm coming back with a baby and no one daring to arrest her for emigrating and all in all, the people not agreeing with the Bill anymore.

In the end, the SHRA issue is resolved peacefully. No big bang.

And Steve doesn’t die in the ice like he expects to.

But perhaps he dies like he would have wanted to if he could be selfless in his last moments.

He’s meeting up with Tony at the Clubhouse. It’s dinnertime and the sun is red and golden in the sky. He’s crossing a street. Tony, who is waiting for him on the other side, waves and puts away his phone. They have a date.

The shots ring out.

Steve doesn’t _get_ last moments. The bullets penetrate his neck and skull, and he dies right away.

He _slips_. He is sinking through the icy water again. He can see the ice cover the surface of the water, a cover of white blocking out the sun and his escape. He’s dead and he doesn’t even get to say goodbye to [¿Tony?]. He’s **_never_** going see himself be a grandfather or a father, or figure out how long ~~Tony and him~~ ~~will last~~... ~~He’s too young.~~ **He saw this coming. ~~It has happened before. He has been unmade like this before.~~**

But the water is so cold. So numbing. His anger slips away. His blood diffuses like it has never been there.

**He’s forgetting something.**

~~But he has so many times before.~~

~~\----~~

**Just in! 04/07/2015**  
  
“ _Yes, we are reporting here from New York City, State Hospital, where Howard Stark’s son, Anthony Edward Stark, nicknamed Tony and his lover, Steve Rogers, were involved in a sniping that ended up killing Rogers and badly wounding Tony Stark. Tony Stark is in intensive surgery at the moment, with shrapnel in his chest. Rogers was declared dead on site. As far as we have been told, the two youngsters were meeting up to watch the passing sentence of SHRA, afterwards going home to quietly celebrate Rogers’ birthday with friends and family._ ”  
  
 **Just in! 02/08/2015**  
  
“ _We are standing on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Only one month after the attack on the heir of Stark Industries, Anthony Stark, is being trialed for the possible sabotage and hacking of governmental organisations, such as H.A.M.M.E.R. and FBI. Rumours have it that Stark is involved with the Resistance and that he has aided the Avengers since the beginning of their formation.”_  
  
“ _Yes, I am standing here in front of the Court, and Anthony Stark has just fully admitted to being the Avengers’ hacker, Iron Man, and the red-gold robot seen on many locations, which was believed to be another Sentinel. There have been a full confession of Stark possessing Extremis, a biotechnological project locked down over a decade ago, which he explains to have transformed his brain into a supercomputer - of which he used to aid the Avengers, make them immune to the Sentinels and to delete all digital evidence of his armor. The young Stark is still in recovery of his surgery._ ”  
  
 **Just in! 22/08/2015**  
  
“ _Oh my God, I have just on firsthand witnessed most of the Avengers - minus Spiderman - unmask themselves. We are all awaiting for Captain America to arrive to the scene, hopefully to follow his teammates example.“_  
  
 _“This just came in. Anthony Stark just informed us all that Captain America won’t be arriving. Stephen, bring up the picture. As we have known Captain America’s true face all along! Yes, it is true, and devastating to know, that Captain America is Steve Rogers, the young man who was shot on Independence Day. Apparently the sniping attack wasn’t aimed at Tony Stark, but an assassination on Captain America himself. The assassin was H.A.M.M.E.R. hire, a neo-Nazi called Crossbones, who was operating through a leak of Captain America’s true identity._ ”  
  
 **Just in! 23/08/2015**  
“ _Due to protest of the whole country, the Supreme Court has chosen to drop all charges aimed at the Avengers, including Tony Stark. The people is in mourning of their newly found and newly lost hero. On the positive side, Tony Stark is recovering from his surgeries and is able to get back in action soon, even after having lost the boyfriend he was soon to celebrate a 1 year anniversary with._ ”  
  
 **Just in! 30/08/2015**  
 _“The controversy about H.A.M.M.E.R., the international government-owned organisation operating all over the planet, has reached the tip of its iceberg as a new director has been chosen! We all already know him as Iron Man.”_ ~~~~  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you've probably noticed that the past chapters have become shorter and more incoherent. I really wanted to wrap it up nicely and make long chapters of fluff, coziness and domestic drama-free Stony life, but since this is Steve's POV, I wanted to write it in a way that matches how Steve slowly starts to forget things and lose track.


	21. You gave me a home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this is all your lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I decided to add the epilogue to the story instead of making it a series. This will be Tony's POV, and takes place 5 years after Steve's last birthday.

This is routine.

You drink away the hangover.

Work. Performing the genius act excellently every time.

Save the world, if need be. If you walk in a straight line and keep focus, no one will comment on your obvious drunkenness.

If you screw up, no one will call you out on it. After all you’re one of the ”original Avengers”. There are hundreds of Avengers now, across the country, some of the formerly incarcerated superheroes leading the teams, so you’d think that the “Original Avenger” title would have lost its glam by now. But it hasn’t.

And this is all your lonely.

\----

In a world like yours, sleep isn’t a thing. Sleeping has become a state of which you fall into when you’re drunk enough, smashed enough. You don’t know why you hate it. Maybe you’re scared someone will attack, or like that time where you couldn’t wake up again. It’s not like the scar tissue isn’t numb and no nightmares are bleeding through anymore; sleeping is a black void you’d just rather not fall into.

So, black out drunk is not a better option, but what the Hell do you want.

It just feels like you’re running out of options.

You’re lying on the floor with a bottle in your hand, and you don’t notice the company until Dad kicks at your chair.

“Tony,” he calls out. You remember when you were the one who found him like this, two years old with the nanny looking out for you, even though your own Dad was right fucking there in the basement, getting drunk with bitterness and alcohol, trying to find revenge even though he knew it wouldn’t change anything. You think that you’ve turned out just like him.

“Get in bed,” Dad advises and tries to tug away the bottle. “Tony. Come on.”

“Go away,” you grunt. “I’m fine.”

“You’re gonna get a crick in your neck.”

“Extremis will fix it.” You are actually getting a crick in the neck.

“Tony, it can’t go on like this,” your Dad sighs and you internally groan, because are they having that talk now. “You need help.”

“I’ve finished therapy. The psychologist cleared me for duty.”

“That was three years ago, before your –“ His voice cracks and you remember that he’s weak. If he had been harsher, perhaps you would’ve started feeling properly disgusted with yourself by now. “Before your drinking.”

“Afraid I will turn into you?” you ask and it’s unfair and another attempt at burning a bridge made by a genius engineer. Or perhaps the bridge burned down a long time ago, and this is simply just the aftermath.

And Dad, well. He’s usually smarter than letting you get to him. His lips still thin. “You’re going to work tomorrow.”

“Never stopped you,” you keep taunting.

It’s bait and you deserve his answer. Still you’re not ready for it when your Dad says: “Steve wouldn’t want you to live this way.”

You want to punch him, but the second you get up you know you’re not able to. The world spins and your legs don’t work and you’re collapsing into the side of the table. Your Dad tries to help, like always, but your armor is too heavy.

\----

There are days where you go out to deliberately find someone who looks like him. It’s an artificial pain relief, which will only make the sting worse afterwards, but it gets you through your dark weeks. Dark months. Years. Whatever.

After some time in the underground, you learn that voluntary participants mean work; mean giving a piece of you, you’re not ready to share.

So you call in sex workers, who know their place, who do all the things you ask them to without question, who don’t ask you what you do in your free time or about the original Avengers, spread over North America, whom you still feel obligated In protecting.

You can fuck him into the mattress. Or let him do it slow and sweet to you; he’s good, he knows how to make it feel like he’s pulling off every mask and layer of your skin. Or make him hold your head down with his hands, while roughly pounding every feeling and thought out of your head.

You hate yourself afterwards, but the pocket of blissful obliviousness while it happens –

Sometimes it almost feels the same. Other times you become resentful, wish Steve never existed or that you just turned into a mindless little drone like the army wanted you to be (You’re distantly aware that Steve would have been horrified with these thoughts).

Sometimes, you even still the person in the morning, sometimes you can even flirt and mean it, other times you make them leave right after and you cry out Steve’s name.

\----

You monitor the Illuminati now. Xavier, T’Challa and Black Bolt are all back, but you still don’t trust them one bit. It’s a very peaceful job, right until Namor re-enters the picture and causes trouble. But the group finds their routine, their way of harmony. One time Richards tries to include you and you snap: “ _I’m not one of you_.”

They used to be your heroes, but you can’t help but think that if it hadn’t been because of them, Steve would have never –

That’s not true. Not all of the Illuminati supported Registration, but these supposed giants never lifted a finger to stop it. No, a goddamn grad student had to go be the better example and lay down his life, before people –

\----

The only thing you feel safe and comfortable doing is looking out for the Avengers. You take a shower every evening to look sober and decent, and you call which one of them you know is available and whom you need to check up on. The conversations with the Avengers can go from 20 minutes to hours, and sometimes your whole body itches, spasms, trying not to reach for a drink, but you need them to see you collected, calm, in control, even though control flew right out of the window the first time you reached for the oblivion of alcohol.

Clint, adult or not, still needs a guiding, patient hand. His mouth has only gotten worse over the years, but not in a bad way, just in a rebellious one. As if SHRA is still reigning and they’re still fighting. He had it the hardest coming out of those times. Last year, he faced a villain, who ended up almost taking away Clint’s entire hearing. His hearing aids should help him, but it only left the hero paranoid and more suspicious.

Pietro, well. With his position as a diplomat on the moon, he found a girl with an ego to match and a few friends up there. His wit and firmness compensates for his, at times, poor diplomacy. They respect him and that’s the most important thing. You’re glad that Pietro had the chance to start anew somewhere else. It has been good for him.

Faizah finished her degree in criminology, introduced an obligatory ethics-course for the police force and lives in Harlem as a teacher.

Not far away from Sam, who’s a youth counselor for the Maria Stark Foundation. Sometimes, on your dark days, you remind yourself that if you don’t work, his job is going to become a lot harder.

At the Hero Boot Camp, Danielle is shaping whole units of metahuman.

Peter finished a master’s in biochemistry. He’s the only one who still isn’t out and works as a superhero old school.

And Wanda is teaching at the Jean Grey school, married with Vision. None of them really show up for Avengers duty anymore. They’re living the happy, domestic life and they deserve that. There are plenty of people who are willing and able to take their place.

You make it your job to make sure that all of them know they’re not alone. You arrange the parties for their birthdays, buys them obscene gifts. You feel like making sure that the family doesn’t fall apart is the only important thing to do.

Besides. How the Hell are you supposed to tell them that you’ve been spending nights cutting Steve out of your smile, spent heaving eternities reaching into your heart, trying to pull pieces of him _out of you_ –

\----

Thing is, you can’t keep living like this, on a constant high of adrenaline and alcohol and making sure that everything is perfect. You’re supposed to get better, time is supposed to make it help fade. Maybe part of it is because you don’t want it to fade. The year with Steve had been the happiest in your life, a daydream you want to stay in.

You probably glorify those memories, because there had been misunderstandings and periods of being mad at each other and miscommunications, but you remember it as perfect, flawless.

You guess that no one who feels like they already had the most perfect thing, are willing to forget. But they still do. It’s the human way of surviving; you forget, so you can take in something new. You don’t have a human brain though. Do you being this way have something to do with Extremis? Because you don’t feel like you ever stopped grieving, the mourning just changed its form. You just became better at pretending. They don’t know that mornings aren’t becoming any easier, they don’t know how Steve’s death left you different. You know that even if you manage to bring Steve back, it won’t be the same, because who were you then, that didn’t know mourning, didn’t know how to live like this.

\----

_“Please, Steve, I can’t – please don’t let you be the price, please don’t be the price, I take it back, I can’t pay, I won’t pay, please –“_

\----

It doesn’t matter how much you pretend. None of them are him.

\----

You hate yourself for not ever really letting go.

\----

When you were no longer cleaning messes and sweeping up broken glass, you silently fell apart.

You can’t imagine loving anew. You can’t imagine settling down, becoming – embracing this odd thing called happiness.

The past seems glazed in happiness’ thick syrup, and it appears so alien to you.

You don’t look at pictures of you two, because you can definitely not take that, you can’t –

But there are videotapes of Captain America on the battlefield or making speeches, and you feel more distanced from intimate memories watching those, feels obligated to stick close to the ideal Steve had, and even when your stomach is clenching, you grit your teeth and press replay.

\----

There are things that don’t fit. The pre-school Steve claimed to go to closed 23 years ago. When you find Sarah Rogers’ gravestone in Arlington, it says she died in 1926. There are records of a Peggy Carter and Bucky Barnes, but Peggy Carter died in a retirement home with Alzheimer in the 80’es and Bucky Barnes appeared to go MIA in the Alps during WW2, 1945. Sam claims to have met Barnes, but there are no records of the guy, only the records of Steve and Barnes coming to the orphanage, appearing to have showed up from thin air. It’s as if the more time flows, the less signs there are of Steve’s life, and you’re confused, desperate to know if you have always only just loved a ghost, if all of it was a lie.

\----

The statue is ridiculous, really. Captain America in stone, the shield held in an awaiting posture and his head slightly tilted up, looking at the sky. Steve wouldn’t look at the sky and wait for some superhero or Messiah to come save them. He’d be looking right at _you_ and expecting the best of _you_. Whatever. The statue looks more inspiring and glorifying this way.

\----

Some days are filled with fury. Some days you smash your glass and the armor and everything else around you, because it’s not fair of Steve to just die, to just walk away, and you can’t. You can’t, because you’re always thinking of Steve, always miss him and how sick is that.

\----

_Troublesome. Ugh. This is ridiculous._

Some stupid, fucking drunk American tourist has fallen and almost drowned himself in a fountain in France. The police got him out of the ice-covered water and dropped him in front of the American embassy, where the tourist has been calling Stark staff for hours, asking for your attention. He says he’s an Avenger. Staff says it sounds important.

You pick up the phone, go: “I will sue the shit out of you if this is a prank, you hear me, kid?”

There’s a moment of silence and then a gulp. “Tony?” the voice is hoarse and hesitant and is just about recognizable enough through the monstrous cellphone quality they use in France.

You use Extremis and hack into the embassy’s security cameras. You stare at the tall man in front of the phone, who is directly looking up towards the cameras. You stare at his face. You try to connect with him to see if he’s a LMD. But you can’t; this person is flesh and blood. He could be a Skrull.

“Please Tony,” Steve says, and he sounds so fragile, so weak. “Take me home.”

You sink. "JARVIS. JARVIS, explain me what you see through my leak."  
  
JARVIS coolly describes the man, his height, approximates his weight, his build, takes a guess of the person being around 25 years old. He describes hair, face features, the red eyes and stubble, lack of scarring. At last he says: "In all, his physical similarity to Steve Rogers is 95%."

"The other 5%?" you ask.

"This is the way I would've predicted Steve to age. However, genetics and living conditions considered, there's no sure way of telling."

"Call Dad."

"Yes, Sir."

Ten long agonizing minutes later, Dad is rubbing sleep out of his eyes and staring at the screen.

"Are you seeing what I see?" you ask.

"Impossible," Dad mummers and leans forward. "It must be a Skrull."

He quickly looks at you, but you're glad he isn't letting you get your hopes up.

"Only one way of telling," you say and call up Hill. "I want Steve's grave checked by agents of level 10, and I want a paramedic, Dr. Strange, Scarlet Witch and Vision to meet me in front of the American Embassy in Paris in four hours."

"Alright."

"Do it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the teenage!avengers are over and done. What did you think? Author's soul feeds on constructive criticism and feedback :D


	22. Chapter 22

"Tony, I don't understand this," Wanda shouts at him as a greeting, clearly in distress as she walks towards him, Strange following like an ominous presence behind her. "What's going on? What's up with this tourist?"

"No sure way of telling," Tony deflects and opens the door for the embassy. Who doesn't have electric doors anymore anyway. "He showed up on my radar this morning. We're here to get his identity confirmed and verified or accuse him of identity theft. Where's Vision?"

"Couldn't make it," Wanda answers.

"Who is it?" Dr. Strange asks.

Tony shakes hands with the paramedic and waves them inside. The reception leads them into an empty office, and they round the desks and arrive at a lone table with empty McDonald wrappers and a slumped figure. The figure turns around and.

And it's like.

Wanda is breathing heavily behind him, a red light emitting from her hands and eyes. Tony puts a hand on her arm.

Steve - or the person who looks exactly like Steve - blinks slowly at them and looks down at the table. He doesn't say anything, just clears his throat.

"Strange," Tony curtly says, unlocking a Skrull scanner from his arm. Unafraid he marches forward, grabs Steve around the chin and scans his face. Takes a sample of his saliva.

Steve looks straight at him, his eyes tired and wary.

The Skrull scanner beeps negative.

Behind Tony, Strange confirms: "I can't track any spells on him."

"Wrong," Steve says. "There is a spell on me, but it figures that you can't sense - or that you didn't sense it last time we saw each other."

"Excuse me?" Strange asks.

"You've been wrong before," Steve says. "So, is the casket empty or what?"

It's empty. Hill called him during his flight.

"What's that?" Steve asks, looking at the arc reactor in Tony's chest. "I don't remember that."

"What do you remember?" Tony asks.

"Dying," Steve answers. He frowns, and finally the mask of numbness starts crackling. He looks away as his lips tremble.

"Where have you been?" Scarlet asks.

Steve's voice shakes: "Beneath the ice."

"Why here? Why were you found drowning in a fountain?" Tony asks. "It doesn't make sense."

"It does," Steve says and bites his lip. He looks down, and gets tears in his eyes. "I think. I'm sorry."

"Explain," Strange lets out, and as the first person, he sits down by the table. He picks up his Eye of Agamotto, closes an eye and looks at Steve through it. Whatever he sees doesn't surprise him. He drops it and shakes his head at Tony.

"I'm a ghost," Steve lets out. "I died a... a long time ago. I had another life. I don't know how, but somehow I... I started anew."

"Start from the beginning," Wanda begins, but Tony interrupts: "It's true. He is."

Steve looks up at him.

"Which year were you born, Steve?" Tony asks, leaning forwards. He feels oddly cold and disconnected.

"1920," Steve sniffs. "I died 1945. In that fountain." His voice shakes. "I was shot in the chest after the liberation of Europe, and thrown in there. It was winter. The last thing I remember was sinking in the water, and the... the ice covering the surface. Bucky was screaming at me, but Namor..."

"Namor?" Strange asks.

"The Invaders," Steve says. "Ever heard of the Winter Soldier? That was Bucky. I was a consultant. I didn't have the serum at that time, I wasn't fit for battle."

This is all just becoming more and more confusing.

"But I can touch you," Wanda says and grabs onto Steve. "You're flesh and blood. I can feel your heartbeat and your lungs, your soul is present, you can't be a ghost -"

"I'm alive and present, until I die," Steve says. "Happened with the Winter Soldier in 1947, with Peggy Carter in 1984. We die. And then we come back. And then we die again. I called Peggy's - from this time - parents. She died last year. Car accident. And you know about Bucky."

"Why are you here then," Strange asks. He talks like Steve is a poltergeist. Strange nods at the paramedic. At some point Tony froze. The paramedic starts taking blood samples, skin tissue, another saliva test, hair sample. Then she starts checking blood pressure, lung function, etc. "There must be a reason why you..."

"I don't know," Steve says, burying his face in his hands. "All I know is that this time... I didn't forget. I didn't de-age and start over. I remember things before, but also things before that."

Wanda looks at Tony, and Tony realizes she thinks he knows what to do.

"Well, we must assume that you're here for a reason," Strange says, looking at Tony and then at Steve. "The data we have gathered after your most recent death ... fits with your explanation. We especially took notice of the fact that you were born and died with Registration."

Steve waves at him, looking annoyed. "I wasn't born. I came fresh out of the fountain as an 8-year old, and ended in my birth place, repeated history. It was during Secret Invasion I showed up, people assumed my parents were killed during it."

"How do you remember that?" Wanda asks, clenching his hands. "You were 8 years old. You've never mentioned anything like this before."

"But he never not mentioned it either," Tony says. "You didn't remember things before the orphanage very well."

Steve is about to answer, but then halts, and frowns. "Have... you been drinking?"

"Not the case in point," Tony snaps.

"Have you been flying and drinking?" Steve repeats harsher.

"It was an emergency!" Tony breaks out.

"Well, you should've let JARVIS fly the armor," Steve shoots back. "That's so dangerous, oh my God. Christ. Why. Wait, why does Strange know our identities. Why are you older? How long has it been?"

"5 years," Strange answers without blinking.

"And you're still Sorcerer Supreme?" Steve croaks hoarsely at Stephen. "Didn't you, like, make a deal with a demon last time I lived? Many deals in fact?"

Strange shrugs.

Wanda coughs. "Fair question."

"A lot has happened," Strange says.

"You don't say!" Steve yells. "Lord of mercy, please tell me the Illuminati is - no, actually don't tell me, _let me go drown myself in that fountain -_ "

"You're hysteric," the paramedic informs quietly.

"Sorry, m'am," Steve mumbles and settles in the chair again, breathing heavily. He puts his face in his hands. He doesn't start crying.

\----

Strange teleports them back. They stand in the Stark Mansion, and stare at each other, and then Scarlet goes to call the other Avengers. Tony dismantles his armor and Strange goes to consult the spirits or something.

Tony falls into the couch with some brandy. Steve stands by himself where they left him.

"Get over here," Tony grunts and puts the brandy on the table. Steve sits down beside him, shaking. Tony sighs and holds out his arms. He's afraid. He's mortified, about to piss his pants actually. But Steve's face breaks open again and he lets Tony close his arms around him. Steve starts crying. Tony doesn't remember Steve crying this much. But if Steve is really remembering all the things he is claiming to remember, this must be devastating. Tony sinks as Steve wets his shirt with tears and it all stops becoming unreal to him. There is something being picked open, a little tear is created and suddenly Tony is crying too, but silently. He's gripping Steve, desperate and yearning and the thought of Steve disappearing without answers, without a goodbye, without re-connecting, is enough to make Tony choke and gasp. Soon Steve is the one who is holding Tony, who is grabbing him like an octopus, trying to get closer, safer, somehow melt them together and make sure nothing ever separates them ever again.

"I'm sorry," Steve says at some point. "I'm sorry."

He leans in and with salty lips, he roughly kisses Tony. Tony doesn't move because every brain cell is exploding at this, he feels like back in the day when the neurochips were still in and regularly fucked up his brain. Steve falls back as if he has been burned.

"I'm sorry, you probably," Steve shakes his head. "You probably found somebody else."

"No," Tony gasps and leans in again. Steve grips at his sides and hungrily takes of Tony's mouth and at some point Tony stops crying and starts feeling, and every part, every part Tony had thought dead and gone comes alive.

It's 2020. The sun is white in the sky, and snow covers New York. And Tony is kissing Steve again. Some part of him considers if this is him finally losing sanity, but a larger part reasons; his sanity has been fine for years, despite accusations, and superheroes return from the dead all the time - Hell, Tony has himself. It's not that unbelievable, it's not that unimaginable. Crazier things have in fact happened. And maybe, there is some curse on Steve. Maybe he is in an evil reincarnation cycle, maybe this isn't fixable. But for all the power and science in the world, Tony is going to fight. He is going to hold on to Steve, because Steve belongs with him, always will.

Tony loves every inch of Steve, and he might have lost things, might have lost Steve. He should be scared, be scared of loving again, but he can't lose Steve again. Not now. Oh God, not now, not again, never again.

"Promise me," Steve says, pulling back. "That no matter what happens after this, you will find me. You will find me, and you will choose me, Tony."

"It will always be you," Tony laughs. "You've been sleeping. You don't understand how it has been. It will always be you, Steve."

"Only you," Steve smiles, like really smiles, while holding Tony's cheeks. It's not perfect; that's not life and especially not the life they've chosen. But it's theirs.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
